c5e673a2-e7d9-4c36-8990-fd4d54a0ab09At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer.

Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.

]]>Thu, 04 Jun 2020 12:00:00 GMT6951a8ca-7a1e-4838-b8e2-cdefb1defd68Fri, 29 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT85fcb4c1-84ec-4cd2-99c2-e051bcbe7dd6Thu, 28 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT89a91d80-08f9-4231-b381-c9b3dc0a59d9
As the initial of COVID-19 shockwave subsides, there’s a chance you’ll have some time to focus on those types of items in your work life that you know you’ve been neglecting because they didn’t have immediate priority or payback. While we acknowledge that sales leaders will never actually admit to having extra time or cycles, there’s a chance you may have some underutilized resources or people who could use a project to work on.

Consider this short list of things you might want to start tackling if you find you have some extra cycles (or have people on your team who are looking for something to do). It’s a better use of time than binging another TV show.

This post is the last in a series called “The COVID-19 To-Do List for Revenue Leaders,” and will compile and present some of the top insights from TSIA researchers and members, as they deal with the problems of the moment, and look to emerge stronger on the other side.

]]>Wed, 20 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT256cb68e-0f4c-4274-abf8-f946adf3896aTue, 19 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT68dff3b9-8f67-46bc-849e-c10ab8617d7b
It all comes down to how much of the activity that your traditional field sales force has been doing during the crisis in a “virtual mode” will it make sense to leave virtual when we return to “normal”. And, therefore, do you need to retain the same number of resources in your Outside (Field) Sales team.]]>Thu, 14 May 2020 12:00:00 GMTf7f05739-9ea8-4830-9329-84cd3e92bffa
In some cases, they are asking for extensions, claiming that all purchases are on hold as they wait for the crisis to lighten up and their own revenue to start to trend upward. In other cases, customers may be asking for major concessions and discounts, as they know that vendors may also be under pressure and open to cutting prices to keep them on their platforms.

Read on for a few helpful hints on how to hold the line against extensions and discounts in your renewal negotiations, and for an opportunity to participate in TSIA’s “Temperature Check” quick poll on renewals impact.

]]>Wed, 13 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT856eb702-cc00-4d31-9543-a2b46c7d15b1Fri, 08 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT4fe31c31-dacc-4ffd-9408-f9b4a088f4a9
]]>Wed, 06 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT66d6762a-d38c-48d3-9f6a-27bc50846024
]]>Fri, 01 May 2020 12:00:00 GMT97319536-20d9-4fdb-8ea0-4ee5937da2d8
For some companies, this change is more complex than for others. From the work that I’ve done with hardware, software, and services companies, I can see that it’s not easy for any of them. It requires fundamental changes to processes, systems, and tools. And most complicated of all, it requires a change in the beliefs and behaviors of its people.
]]>Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMTaf15093f-ebec-4c3b-a2b7-44f8542ad8be
This mode of working, like distance learning in education, is going to become more accepted even after we are through this pandemic. The belief that people can be productive at home or wherever you are, will remain.

Looking at this through the lens of customer success, we need to prepare for a new engagement model with customers that will both meet their needs and align with outcomes over their lifecycle with your technology and services.

Now is the time to map out the ideal match of digital and human engagement that delivers the best experience in the most empathetic manner while achieving the business outcome. There are three key improvements to consider in digital engagement: is it timely, is it relevant, it is meaningful.
]]>Tue, 28 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMTc6279726-a307-4a30-9bda-2a7e8f867275
This is what the TSIA model is all about. We work with hundreds of the largest tech firms in the world, under strict NDA, and we analyze all the non-public, and public data to look for patterns. We’re looking for both patterns of success and patterns of failure and sharing those insights with our members. We then spend time with our membership community to discuss and validate these insights.
]]>Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMTe5b011fa-8566-46e0-801d-9a649d285c1bWed, 22 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMT871c1a7a-bd9a-4f47-ac53-b13341cb8db5
In our conversations with TSIA member companies dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, certain best practices are beginning to emerge. This post is the second of a series called “The COVID-19 To-Do List for Revenue Leaders,” and will compile and present some of the top insights from TSIA researchers and members, as they deal with the problems of the moment, and look to emerge stronger on the other side.
]]>Tue, 21 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMTc196b46b-2e30-4ce9-b77c-13367eca550aMon, 20 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMT2d1bdff6-ef10-4573-92b3-a09e736bb52dThu, 16 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMTbfd0a497-184b-4b6d-b498-c50687c0702d
At least one thing we can be certain of is that the changes will be fundamental and far reaching. It’s more than enough to boggle the mind. Despite it all, I still often wonder whether there’s actually anything new under the sun. Let me explain. ]]>Wed, 15 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT2a347751-7912-477c-b7dd-2187a8377b6d
In our conversations with TSIA member companies dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, certain best practices are beginning to emerge. This post is the first of a series called “The COVID-19 To-Do List for Revenue Leaders,” and will compile and present some of the top insights from TSIA researchers and members, as they deal with the problems of the moment, and look to emerge stronger on the other side.
]]>Tue, 14 Apr 2020 12:00:00 GMT3d087855-e87e-4b5c-89dc-afc216e389b8Mon, 13 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMTa03d0c3e-c19d-4695-9611-0a2551247f26Thu, 09 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT207f6937-584e-4df2-959d-1fbd02d80a2e
]]>Wed, 08 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT1797d817-fcc0-40df-8b5b-907a0d9a3c84
In fact, recent TSIA benchmark data shows that approximately 17% of revenue for hardware companies is derived from recurring revenues and 38% of revenue for software companies is derived from recurring revenue but, for SaaS companies, the recurring revenue sources are mid 90%.]]>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT98498d38-8d4c-4ae7-941e-6bd82e4c1d65At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer.

Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.

]]>Fri, 03 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT2f816d00-a300-401d-ad23-4380e61cec27Over the last 2-3 weeks we’ve been handling all sorts of inquiries related to the Covid-19 pandemic and how it is impacting sales organizations across the technology and services industry. We’ve done our best to provide an objective perspective based on an unprecedented set of circumstances.

Having said that, there are many precedents that do exist, which can inform and help guide some of the decisions that we are facing. For example, working from home is not a new thing for many salespeople across the industry – it’s perfectly normal. We have members who only have home-based staff and these companies have been very open about sharing what works and what doesn’t. TSIA has compiled its own list of good practices for working from home.

]]>Thu, 02 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMTbd623e87-68b3-4719-8d75-ae5a98b248b4With COVID-19 spreading exponentially by the day, there’s plenty of evidence that the situation is wreaking havoc with both business supply chains and business demand. Whatever the situation as I write this, it’s likely to change again within days.

With a surge of workers engaged from their home locations, new dynamics are being created, our business forecasts and our day-to-day work environments are likely to be quite a departure from the norm of just weeks ago.

]]>Wed, 01 Apr 2020 13:00:00 GMT3b555abd-bd1e-4e9f-9731-8862f8afba87Tue, 31 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT6e92c5e7-6931-4e0e-b8c4-bd68423d686b
This reminded me, among many other things, of two awesome history quotes:
“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy” Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable” General Dwight D. Eisenhower

What’s good for the master planners of, respectively, German war thinking prior to World War I and of the Normandy invasion in 1944, also turned out to be good for the planners of the TSIA State of Professional Services 2020 webinar.
]]>Thu, 26 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT85072059-1983-4b07-8d04-33a8e1913d05Wed, 25 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMTa07c2d20-10e1-4717-9391-810576837293
]]>Tue, 24 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT2df0adaa-b96d-43f3-b9c3-44bb2b2f41bfIn response to COVID-19, more and more companies, including TSIA, are asking employees to work from home. Because a large portion of our team of Research Executives works remotely on a regular, full-time basis, I thought I’d reach out to them and compile a list of their tips and proven best practices for effectively managing their home workspace, daily routine, and how they stay connected. Here’s what they had to say.]]>Thu, 19 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT4a975341-1870-44da-b3b4-51fc8df15545TSIA’s Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew (LAER) customer engagement model has become the most prominent framework for how to grow and keep revenue in the XaaS world. However, if you’re not careful, each of these functions, and the organizations who perform them, will start to serve their own needs rather than those of the company and the customer.

If your company is going to capture the efficiency promised in the LAER model, you need to stop thinking about each motion separately and start thinking about how the motions flow together to grow revenue throughout the customer life cycle.

]]>Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT7a035574-033b-4629-9c48-408591881393
In this blog, I’ll share what becoming LAER Efficient looks like for education services (ES) organizations and address the migration from the Traditional Transactional Stage to the Experiment Stage.
]]>Thu, 12 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMTb8650b2b-fc71-4c83-ae76-8917764c8155With 9 out of 10 service and support organizations utilizing third-party service providers to deliver some or all their field service operations, the days of relying on direct field service engineers are gone. While outsourcing field service engineers has always been with us, the reasons for doing so are changing. The need to reduce costs is being supplanted by the need to support service revenue growth.
]]>Tue, 10 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT9f8cd0b9-cab4-46a7-a1ae-fbc747e44e3e
]]>Thu, 05 Mar 2020 13:00:00 GMT5baab177-10cd-42fa-9671-0525e7294feeIn this episode of “The Business of Product,” Patrick Carmitchel, VP Product Management, TSIA, caught up with Laura Fay, VP Research - XaaS Product Management, TSIA, Suraj Kumar, Chief Platform Officer, Axway, and Shaun Ryan, VP Vision and Strategy, Axway, at Technology & Services World 2019 in Las Vegas to discuss the topic “Disruption is Here.” So what does this ominous sounding proclamation mean? This episode will explore the concept in-depth, and address challenges and recommendations for accelerating growth and APIs through platform business models.
]]>Tue, 03 Mar 2020 13:00:00 GMTef9c04ce-8ea4-4f35-bdb1-ae62076bd456At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer.
]]>Mon, 02 Mar 2020 13:00:00 GMTa9e7a11e-91f6-40e6-b82d-02e12f2651d3How can Customer Support safely assist in the sales motion? This is something we’ve been talking about for a long time at TSIA, and the short answer is that Support can be extremely beneficial to Sales in both landing new customers and uncovering opportunities with existing customers. But, this can’t happen unless there’s a company-wide understanding of just how valuable Support is to the sales process.

In this post, I will share how Support organizations can support Sales during all stages of the customer journey.

]]>Tue, 25 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT4dbe7efa-03fc-4628-a78d-025d5a0db6d4Slower global economic growth and the opportunities and challenges brought on by digital transformation is tremendously changing the competitive landscape for industrial equipment companies. Digital transformation has led to a shift in the customer's perspective away from simply product features and functions towards how a complex system of smart, connected devices and equipment can optimize their outcome.

As new IoT-enabled services are emerging, there is a battle to capture these values between equipment manufacturers and software and platform providers.

]]>Tue, 18 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMTd0ccea66-bd28-4d56-8fcb-0bd7787a87e7Professional services revenue growth rates have increased 10% year over year, according to TSIA’s latest Professional Services Benchmark. However, some professional services leaders are struggling to see a fraction of that growth and are wondering just when they’re going to see the results that the rest of the industry seems to be experiencing.

For a long while, PS leaders seemed to be worried about everything but growing professional services revenues, instead focusing more on renewals or customer success. But those goals have not gone away. On the contrary; the potential role of professional services in driving various measures of product and customer success is arguably more important than ever. But, if you’re going to scale up the ability of professional services to support and fuel customer growth and success, you’re going to have to grow the professional services revenue stream too.

In this blog, I’m going to share how to grow professional services revenue with 3 quick tips.

]]>Thu, 13 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT871dc272-21c9-43a4-8ccd-3ae6dce99094I previously wrote a blog that focused on the topic of outcome-based selling. Without a doubt, this continues to be one of the hottest topics with sales leaders that I speak to around the world.

I’m not sure what it’s like in your company at the moment, but it feels like there is a lot of pressure in the system to drive change initiatives in the Sales organization. As always, the challenge is that no-one’s getting a break when it comes to sales targets. The metaphor that people use is that they are being asked to change the engine on the aircraft while its flying at 40,000 feet!

There’s very clearly an acceptance from sales leaders that change is required. Last year I spoke to around 30 senior sales leaders from across the industry and 92% of them acknowledged that they need to make changes to their customer engagement model. I’ve attended a number of our m members’ sales kick-offs over the last few months, and they are almost all themed around becoming more focused on customer outcomes.

]]>Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMTd1db380e-314e-40d1-8e22-75e83651c6f6Mon, 10 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMT1cc2232d-b3d7-402c-a6cf-dfa4d911df04The role of support leaders has undergone a huge metamorphosis. They are no longer just improving customer satisfaction and lowering support costs, but are now expected to grow business by retaining and growing their customers.

This impact is visible throughout the support organization, but as the role of support leader has evolved, new challenges have surfaced too. They essentially boil down to two major aspirations: First, enterprises are trying to build personalized customer experience on self-service portals, and second, support teams are trying to upskill agents to meet customer expectations. Recently, AI and cognitive search are being seen as a possible solution to these problems, but there are a few things you should be aware of before you make the investment.

]]>Thu, 06 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMTc982c71b-190e-4279-b78e-0a9bc9c78febDigital transformation is everywhere, and the benefits are infinite for Sales organizations. Because of it, they have more technological tools available to them than ever before. The proliferation of the internet not only revolutionized lifestyles, but also the way we conduct business, eventually giving rise to CRM.

This made it possible for sales reps to ditch the rolodex and manage hundreds of thousands of contacts with a few mouse clicks, improving business relationships worldwide. Modern teleconferencing and document proposal automation technology eventually gave sales reps the tools to expand their communication reach, close deals faster and focus on having more customer interactions. Today’s technological landscape breeds new capabilities, allowing sales organizations to automate mundane processes and increase meaningful interactions with prospects.

In this blog, I’m going to reveal how companies can grow their digital infrastructure for Sales and therefore increase their revenue potential by adopting innovate tools. Let’s start by looking at look at what digital transformation actually means first.

]]>Tue, 04 Feb 2020 13:00:00 GMTd9540b28-8f25-4a36-9bfe-dad66b405440At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 31 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT72740962-eee2-4801-91f6-778c20a11f25There are numerous hot topics facing the Support Services community today, many of which are keeping support executives and their leaders from having restful night’s sleep. One of these hot topics is how to retain top Support talent in an ever-increasingly competitive job market. As part of TSIA’s Support Services research and advisory practice, we’ve been tracking these trends and topics with the information through member surveys, benchmarking assessments, and feedback from the largest membership of any TSIA practice.

In this blog, I’m going to share the top 6 elements of an employee retention program that you can learn more about by attending our upcoming TSW conference.

]]>Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT2c9ac039-6cca-4fb8-9883-774ded0b3342For hardware and equipment manufacturers, there are plenty of claims around field service delivery optimization best practices. And a lot of statements regarding what your customers really want that it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s not.

What we know for sure is that your customers don’t want their equipment to break. When it does, they want you to fix it as quickly as possible with minimal impact to their operation.

But as service revenue and the concept of annual recurring revenue (ARR) become more important to OEMs, there are more truths that come into play that should be driving the efforts of your organization every single day.

In this post, I’m going to outline 4 absolute truths that impact today’s hardware and equipment manufacturers so you can know what you should be focusing on in order to optimize field service delivery in your organization.

]]>Tue, 28 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT044dea3d-31a7-4c7c-9010-6c812ed19072Technology & Services World conferences are where Services, Sales, Channel, and Product leaders come get actionable insights for optimizing their business and staying on top of the latest technology industry trends.

We’re counting down the days until our spring conference, TSW San Diego 2020, taking place May 4-6 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Here’s a peek at the unforgettable learning and networking opportunities you can only get by attending! Will we be seeing you in San Diego?

]]>Thu, 16 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT342dacf0-af56-48ad-b52d-638587ab0830The task of building compelling service offers that promote optimal customer outcomes is now the responsibility of a new organization: Service Portfolio Management. This is an emerging function that has matured over time.

In this post, I’m going to share the evolution of the Service Portfolio Management organization and how to build and grow one within your company.

]]>Tue, 14 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT10b5a88d-aa69-44b1-9928-09afb4b6701bAcross the industry, the emergence of new XaaS business models are causing changes in the partner channel, forcing technology vendors to rethink their channel partner strategy and optimize these channels for XaaS. But what exactly is XaaS channel optimization? To answer that, we should first start with what it’s not. It’s not about perpetual license models, nor about sales of up-front, all-you-can-eat, one-time charge contracts of technology offerings only available on-premises.

XaaS channel optimization is about the “as-a-service” subscription offerings which are sold through, sold with or sold to a partner in order to meet a customer’s technology solution business requirements. Ideally optimizing the channel partners’ abilities and capabilities will both meet customers’ needs and drive reach and scale for vendor companies at the same time.

]]>Thu, 09 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT78dcf237-12d5-4883-a4e1-d72936eb910bOne of the questions we get asked a lot at TSIA is how to test the efficiency and effectiveness of changes that companies are implementing in their Sales organizations. It’s such a popular question that we’ve noticed a significant step increase in the number of these inquiries that we’ve received over the last 3-6 months.

The changes that companies are implementing tend to fall into one of two categories:

Moving through the four phases of becoming LAER Efficient: These companies are generally looking to test a new set of offers or a new Land Sales process.

Making the move to outcome-based selling: These companies are typically trying out a new sales methodology and potentially new software.

These two categories aren’t mutually exclusive, as we’ve worked with member companies who are looking to do both of these simultaneously. But oftentimes these organizations will consider “running a pilot”, which can sometimes be seen as a step to avoid rolling out an initiative fully.

]]>Tue, 07 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT88366992-fca6-43ac-b9c5-13befcd9d887At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.
]]>Fri, 03 Jan 2020 13:00:00 GMT544e67a8-460e-4d3b-84d2-a7db074fac7eThere’s an age-old categorization in technology Sales between “hunters” vs. “farmers”. Account executives, who go out and land the “big deals” are known as the hunters. The salespeople who look after the accounts after they’re signed, and try to keep and grow the revenue from their install base, are thought of as “farmers”.

Having grown up in rural Nebraska and having spent my career in technology sales, I’m one of the few people who has been not only a metaphorical “hunter” and “farmer”, but I’ve actually hunted, and I’ve literally farmed.

In both business and real life, one of these actions has stayed basically the same for generations, the other has seen huge gains in efficiency by applying process and technology. Effective farming, or expanding your relationship with existing customers, is the key to cost-efficient revenue growth.

]]>Thu, 19 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMTf5a2b213-2954-4dc0-b805-3448b37002c9For decades, being a successful and effective salesperson depended on your ability to win business through a competitive RFP process. Those who could prove that the features and functionality of their product were the best match for the customer’s needs and could offer them at a competitive price were usually the most successful.

However, the world of technology sales is changing due to two macro trends:

Companies now prefer to purchase their technology “as-a-service” where the supplier is accountable for managing and operating the technology

Business buyers now play an increasingly significant role in the technology solution purchase decision

At TSIA, we are seeing across the industry that the traditional approach to sales is not yielding the results it once was. The evidence suggests that if you continue to sell in the same way in the future as you sold in the past, you are destined to be less and less productive.

So, what’s the alternative? An emerging new practice in the world of technology sales, referred to as “outcome-based selling”.

]]>Tue, 17 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMT6b3a8c71-8f42-4272-8667-31e9236597fbOne of the questions we get asked a lot at TSIA, especially from those new to the support industry, is “What is knowledge management?” Although defining the term isn’t much of a challenge, understanding the scope to which it impacts businesses definitely is. In this blog, I’m going to get into the basics of what exactly knowledge management is, how companies are evolving it, and how non-traditional organizations are finding useful applications for it.]]>Thu, 12 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMT85f09811-1357-4fb3-a2eb-214935a7616eEvery company in the technology industry has a transformation in front of them. At TSIA, we’re seeing incredible patterns emerge in how companies are tackling this transformation, but especially when it comes to sales.

Everyone within a tech organization is directly impacted by what a sales transformation is going to look like and what the end-state will be. One thing that’s emerging as a critical success factor is Sales’ ability to deliver a quality subscription deal. That’s why it’s so important for Sales to have a clear path to successful transformation in their pre-sales processes that can lead to better, more profitable deals.

Pilots have a pre-flight checklist, surgeons have a pre-surgery checklist, so why doesn’t Sales have a checklist for how to identify, develop, and close high-quality deals that will easily lead to adoption, expansion and renewal? This is what inspired us to create one. I’m proud to announce the TSIA Checklist for Success, which your company can use to improve and transform your pre-sales processes for future growth and profitability.

]]>Wed, 11 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMT0b6af361-dae0-4d36-a1bf-55c5453c438dTue, 10 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMTe6436d72-9ab1-40e5-9d8e-86e82065bc6eProduct management is a proxy for the business and the epicenter of impact in the organizations. They spend their time tapping market trends, discovering customer needs and use cases, competitively innovating, defining new market growth categories and strategies, designing product experiences, crafting offers and pricing, and ultimately launching and growing their solutions in market. Doing all this in as-a-service businesses can present new and renewed challenges. I call this the Business of Product Management, and it was a big focus for product management leaders at our recent Technology & Services World conference.

Unlike any other conference in the industry, Technology & Services World delivers 3 days and 120 sessions of information packed sessions on the pertinent Product, Sales and Service aspects of as-a-services solutions for business growth, scale, and profit. Based on attendee feedback, the October 2019 event in Las Vegas was a home run with the product management leaders and executives in attendance. In no particular order, here are a few of the highlights and takeaways.

]]>Tue, 03 Dec 2019 13:00:00 GMTd5137a7c-93f1-4769-a9b1-68ec57b6fd2dAt TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 29 Nov 2019 13:00:00 GMTe0d77ee1-e729-493c-bdfe-fa33f1f299b4At TSIA, we are constantly using data to analyze and document the challenges our members face. One challenge that we see most of our Managed Services members struggling with is selling managed services. Over the past several years, TSIA has conducted multiple surveys, benchmark reviews, and capabilities accelerators that help us identify what these challenges are, how companies are tackling these challenges, and what the key capabilities are that lead to success.

Through the analysis of data gathered from benchmarking more than 115 Managed Services organizations, we see some very clear patterns in driving profitable growth directly related to the sales motions of the organization.

]]>Tue, 26 Nov 2019 13:00:00 GMT9a5f9e68-4998-4682-9643-d20faa2ad432The goal of education and customer training organizations is to deliver training that is easily consumed and readily accessible to customers. The right customer training offers can provide a solid revenue stream for training organizations, but there are a number of different approaches that can be considered.

The most common forms of customer-facing training are e-learning and instructor-led training, which consists of three options:

Classroom training

Virtual instructor-led training (VILT)

On-site training

In this blog, I’ll discuss the three types of instructor-led training and provide insight regarding the percentage of education services revenue garnered from each offer type. We’ll also take a look at e-learning and how it can be packaged with some instructor-led elements to create a robust subscription offer.

]]>Fri, 22 Nov 2019 13:00:00 GMT8bd37a5e-ff30-496b-bbdd-aa7fea2a776cThis is the very first Technology & Services World conference I’ve had the opportunity to attend as part of the research team, and I have to say it was quite an experience. It never ceases to amaze me how much value attendees receive from attending TSW.

This year, I have the chance to write a blog about “what I heard”, a series previously written by John Ragsdale, Distinguished Vice President of Technology Research. Whether it’s sitting amongst the audience during keynotes, attending John Ragsdale’s 1:1 session with members and partners, or speaking directly with Partners during EXPO hours, there were a few recurring themes I felt were most popular. These themes include the following:

Future Service Leaders and Employee Engagement Programs

Professional Services Automation Pushing Its Boundaries

New Use Cases for Self-Service Portals

]]>Tue, 12 Nov 2019 13:00:00 GMTb7d23d16-73f9-4614-9fde-cab74f5730bdCustomer success is the new measure of business success. Today, our organizations are judged less on the services we provide, but more on how those services help customers get to where they want to be. Put another way: no one wants to buy only consulting hours. They are buying a solution to the problem they have.

Sales teams have known this for years, but now we need to spread that approach through all teams, getting everyone to work together to offer a great customer experience, and great results. However, many businesses think that making that shift is hard.

]]>Tue, 05 Nov 2019 13:00:00 GMT19f6fefc-0f0c-4d83-a78a-f308b19405d0Field services refers to any work needing to be completed at a customer site where your products are installed. For example, in the enterprise IT, industrial equipment, and healthcare technology industries, field services involves managing the installation, maintenance, or repair of hardware or equipment installed “in the field”.

If you have products installed on a customer premise, field services and field service management can play new exciting roles in the success of your company. In this post, I’m going to share the basics of field services, including the types of field services offered, the challenges impacting field services, and offer resources for solving those challenges.

]]>Thu, 31 Oct 2019 18:49:59 GMT1217ea7b-95cb-41a2-94d3-f368e4b75b8dAt TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.
]]>Thu, 31 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMT92eea773-eff9-4e38-8f80-3bd097be0a29This was my first Technology & Services World (TSW) conference since joining the TSIA Research team, and it has been a great experience having conversations with members and partners, gaining a better understanding the top issues members are facing, and seeing the hottest tools being demo’d by our partners in the TSW | EXPO. My colleague John Ragsdale asked me to write a quick blog with information on the top attended sessions from yesterday, which had a full day of conference breakouts.

With over two thousand attendees participating in a total of around 90 sessions, here is the list of breakout sessions with the most attendees, which is a great indicator of the topics and business challenges that are top of mind for attendees. Interestingly, the majority of the top attended sessions were case studies on technology, showing companies are always looking for the next innovative tools to help take their organizations to the next level.

]]>Wed, 23 Oct 2019 22:30:43 GMT27d2d1b6-e161-41b3-a6b0-433ac1172273At our Technology & Services World conference, we honor the technology and services companies who have shown exceptional dedication to innovation and excellence in our annual TSIA STAR Awards and Certification Ceremony. As one of the highest honors in tech, the STAR Awards are a way for these organizations to be publicly recognized by their peers as being among the best in the industry.

We’re proud to announce this year’s STAR Awards winners and finalists and celebrate their achievements!

]]>Mon, 21 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMTebf4e0b3-d7b1-4ffd-bef4-ff3b78208d9aI recently had the privilege of hosting a panel discussion at the UCLA Anderson School of Business on the topics of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (XR).

My amazing panelists were Steve Redmond, former CEO of 8i, Dan Burton, CEO of DroneBase, and Derek Belch, CEO of Strivr Labs who have a wealth of learning and experience in these areas.

Here’s the video recording and transcript of our discussion. The top takeaways you can expect to learn from this session include:

In this blog, I will explain how companies across the industry are integrating services quoting with CRM (customer relationship management) and PSA (professional services automation).

]]>Wed, 16 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMTddaa065f-92a1-4862-9e8e-dae05405cb7cLong before the Internet of Things (IoT) was a conceptual buzzword being tossed around, the idea of remotely tracking the performance of a machine has been well established in both the industrial equipment and healthcare technology industries. The idea of tracking the data captured by this equipment, and even having a localized network of these machines being connected to one another is not new.

What is new is the advances in computing power at a smaller scale, the sophistication of networks, and the volume of data that is able to be transferred over the internet. This is now unlocking people’s minds to imagine new possibilities and contribute to the Internet of Things. In this blog, I’m going to talk about how you can begin creating your IoT strategy.

]]>Thu, 10 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMT9e545003-2cf6-4623-9e00-66ff98449865according to a recent PwC study, “[Businesses should] take advantage of automation, but make sure customers can reach a human when one is needed. In turn, automated solutions should “learn” from human interactions so those experiences also improve?”

Of course you did. You live and breathe customer support every day, all day. In addition, you’re constantly exploring new technologies to improve your metrics as well the customer support experience. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of those promising technologies.
]]>Tue, 08 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMT8a2908f0-e293-4aff-9120-8909fd03859aA popular topic for TSIA members is around implementing policies for improving revenue performance and how to deploy these policies in an effective manner. This is especially critical in SaaS or other as-a-service business models where subscription renewal is critical to revenue retention and growth.

When companies either fail to deploy effective policies or deploy policies in an ineffective manner, they leave themselves venerable for revenue leakage, high cost to renew, confusion, and generally, experience poorly optimized renewal outcomes.

]]>Thu, 03 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMTf37c4872-03a2-4fba-ad09-c360f5be5cdbAt TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology organizations both large and small grow and advance in the industry. We’d like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as acknowledge companies already a part of the TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 01 Oct 2019 12:00:00 GMTe8f03add-ce79-44c5-996f-5cdc31d17155Each quarter, TSIA consolidates the results from 50 of the largest publicly traded technology and services companies; we refer to these companies as the Technology & Services 50. The purpose of this exercise is to establish performance data and understand the major trends impacting the technology industry.

We also conduct a similar exercise focused on 40 of the largest public SaaS companies, those that were “born in the cloud”; we call these companies the Cloud 40.

For some time, we have been highlighting one of the major differences between these two profiles of companies, which is the percentage of revenue that they spend on sales and marketing.

]]>Thu, 26 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMTcad4972f-7cba-44aa-b376-69d2d5738a0bAlmost everything that’s growing in the B2B market today is XaaS, or “as-a-service”, where the “X” is a placeholder for anything you want it to be, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Device-as-a-Service (DaaS), Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), etc., just to name a few. Being successful in the XaaS world requires becoming LAER Efficient, in which Product Management plays a pivotal role.

In this post, I will address key questions on this topic, including:

What is the LAER customer engagement model?

What is a LAER Efficient business?

What is Product Management’s role in becoming LAER Efficient?

Where can Product Management learn more about building LAER Efficient solutions?

]]>Tue, 24 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMT82e3ecec-2687-4776-8ed9-ab954dbe51e3
]]>Thu, 19 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMT03b1f250-c28c-4393-8f69-3c0d12fdbad2Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:14:17 GMTc487dcc3-b775-4d2f-a76b-3e3bca64b44dProfessional Services organizations today are under increasing revenue pressure, but many are still seeing projects fail because of things like poor scoping, misaligned expectations between company and client, ineffective resource planning, and more.
]]>Wed, 11 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMT4559f5c8-428e-4eb5-9e04-2c2c2d6da6bfAs an equipment manufacturer, you need to continually improve your service delivery capability and align your service offers with customer expectations. This will enable you to defend and grow a key company revenue stream.

In this post, I’ll share 10 things that we know about equipment manufacturers and their customers gleaned from the most comprehensive field service benchmark dataset in the industry.

]]>Tue, 10 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMTb30f3043-ccea-48b6-95cc-845a5c0d07e6When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), a common misconception I see in the tech industry, especially in Support organizations, is that AI is a way to reduce headcount and cut costs. I believe that is the wrong conversation to be having when it comes to AI in Support Services. The right conversation to have should be about examining how the prevalence of AI and machine learning will enhance and evolve the employee experience.
]]>Thu, 05 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMT9ea20ae1-a4da-498b-9951-a4458b82eea3Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew—Well before its official debut in Technology-as-a-Service Playbookin 2016, TSIA proposed the LAER model as the ideal framework for technology business growth, and it has become far more than just an acronym since then. LAER has helped shape the customer approach for the entire XaaS movement and the technology industry as a whole. But like any roadmap, it’s most useful if you use it to guide your entire journey.
]]>Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:00:00 GMT7dfc5835-0085-4f9a-9acb-342096b2cee7Finding ways to increase customer training revenue is always top of mind for training and education organizations. To accommodate customers’ increased interest in digital learning, more and more customer training organizations provide digital learning via a subscription offer, or in a learning-as-a-service (LaaS) model.
]]>Wed, 28 Aug 2019 18:49:05 GMT0671116a-9753-44cb-a168-57512f33abeaTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 27 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMT3f382f0e-069a-4028-bd22-24cce23c2233What exactly is digital transformation? I recently had a CEO ask me to give a one-sentence description, and I was momentarily stuck without an answer (which is pretty rare, for those of you who know me). The official description I have been using in webinars and conference presentations is, “Digital transformation is the transformation of people, process, and technology to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of digital technologies.

I later asked my friend Tarik Mahmoud for his thoughts, and he provided a similar description, saying that “Digital transformation means incorporating and enabling technology into workflow and processes to streamline business conduct and simplify operations.

]]>Thu, 22 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMTd05e1ec9-9859-4960-ad60-5beba47653aaWhen B2B companies first start experimenting with utilizing data to enhance their sales efforts, they often take a very product-centric approach. The temptation is to create an Amazon.com-style correlation engine, where they can make suggestions based on what “customers like you also bought”.

However, in the B2B world, where sales are based on outcomes and complex solutions, a different approach is needed. So what’s the hidden key to a data-driven sales strategy in B2B? Don’t start with the data, start with the problem.

]]>Thu, 15 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMTbe15d482-e3c3-413d-8813-2dea06d68e7fThere are a few hot topics facing the professional services community today, many of which are keeping professional services leaders and professionals up at night. As part of TSIA’s Professional Services research and advisory practice, we’ve been tracking these trends and topics with the information gathered through member surveys, benchmark assessments, and feedback from our extensive membership community.

In this blog I’m going to share 6 of the top business challenges impacting professional services organizations, along with thoughts about some of the dynamics and drivers in play with each.

]]>Tue, 13 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMTfb9e845c-31dc-41bc-9265-557754940ee3Hardware and software companies are constantly facing pressure from customers to increase the value their products deliver, and to deliver a quicker return on investment. As more companies are being driven into the technology subscription marketplace by the changing needs of their customers, the ones that embrace this change are the ones that end up growing at exponential rates. And with this change, they must make some realistic decisions on the types of solutions they’re going to offer their customers going forward.

Offering managed services (MS) is one way technology companies can meet these challenges. A well-developed managed services offering can provide clear benefit to both the technology vendor and the customer.

]]>Thu, 08 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMTd4d4ee76-4bbf-49e2-964e-2fcb7a529089If you are running a SaaS business with a SaaS pricing model, you are probably very focused on customer retention and product adoption to drive up your annual recurring revenue (ARR), right? Of course you are. But many companies don’t invest nearly as much time on the SaaS pricing strategy as they should.

Why should businesses dedicate focused energy on how best to price their SaaS software? Because pricing is the fastest and most effective way for businesses to increase profits to the bottom line or at a minimum make the additional funds available for other investments.

]]>Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMT680b07ab-da77-47db-83a0-321fa0529423Over the last few years, one of the TSIA’s hottest query topics has been around how member organizations can cost-effectively grow revenues when their customers are changing the way they want to buy and consume their technology solutions.

Most of today's organizations recognize that they are facing the greatest period of change in the technology industry in their lifetime. Everything is changing—what you sell, how you sell, and who you sell to.

]]>Thu, 01 Aug 2019 12:00:00 GMTbbf79fd9-dd09-466b-933c-904891f15701Wed, 31 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMT91cb454d-ebf8-4237-91d5-eae451e5acdfIndustrial equipment companies are in the middle of a massive transition. The Services part of their businesses are following the to help customers improve their operations, achieve outcomes, and receive more value. TSIA research shows that more and more industrial equipment (IE) companies are offering their technology on an “as-a-service” or subscription basis.
]]>Tue, 30 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMT2f2a88de-a17a-4e16-b9db-a274b9da2504Mark your calendar for Friday, August 16, for a three-hour virtual summit all about digital transformation, including what it is, and how it’s impacting the technology industry. In this online event, sponsored by Coveo, you’ll learn from technology and services industry experts about how they’re addressing digital transformation within their companies and get insight on how to unlock new business potential by optimizing your people, processes, and technology for the digital age.
]]>Thu, 25 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMT70553c3b-eea5-4720-bae4-69a84a665033You’ve probably all heard the maxim by Ben Franklin, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I’d like to add another certainty to the mix, “A learning subscription isn’t going to renew itself.” TSIA’s recent Education Services Consumption and Learning Subscription Survey proves this to be true.

Regardless of what’s included in your learning subscription offer and whether it’s enterprise or individual, at the end of the day, what matters most are two things: preserving the revenue stream via renewal and growing the business via selling more subscriptions. This blog focuses on the former.

]]>Tue, 23 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMT3efc343f-2e40-4980-8f9c-b4792ad5a243TSIA members frequently ask us how to set targets for technology renewal rate performance and measure them the right way. When renewal rates are measured without context for vertical markets or renewal opportunity segmentation, performance can be misleading. This permits poorly optimized practices to exist, and therefore results in lost revenue.

In this post, I’m going to share some recommendations for driving more revenue through a segmented renewal strategy, starting with making sure that you’re setting the right targets.

]]>Thu, 18 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMTc4d8d5da-0013-4476-8d82-85101f1d869eConsumers today are changing the way they want to access technology and technology solutions. They’re moving away from outright owning their tech, instead choosing to pay only for what they need and use on an ongoing subscription basis, as evidenced by services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple Music, etc.

These new subscription-based business models are having a major impact on technology sales organizations and how they operate. There are subtle but important differences in the challenges presented by “as-a-service” will differ depending on which sector of the technology industry you’re in. In this blog, I share three foundational papers from TSIA, designed to help guide salespeople in hardware, software, and technology services through this industry-wide transformation.
]]>Tue, 16 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMTc96909d0-3bd6-4529-ae53-c1a2cce2f9a4While the technology services industry is moving toward outcome-based services, most professional services organizations have to be able to adapt and transform even as they defend, protect, and improve their Level 2 capabilities. In other words, they have to walk and chew gum at the same time!

In this post, I’ll be detailing the three main capabilities successful professional services executives are developing in order to avoid common pitfalls and capitalize on the new opportunities presented by the current state of the technology industry.

]]>Wed, 10 Jul 2019 16:18:42 GMT0e9b3ff5-df7a-4e8f-a223-62e94593cc80Today's technology and services organizations rely on TSIA to provide them with the right business frameworks, best practices, deep industry insight, and the data they'll need to overcome top business challenges, achieve specific business objectives, and thrive in a rapidly changing market. TSIA’s advisory solutions, called TSIA Strategic Services, are designed to help companies like yours achieve your desired business outcomes even faster.
]]>Mon, 08 Jul 2019 19:16:03 GMTbbe0dd94-688a-489a-8e40-dbca54246a8bTue, 02 Jul 2019 12:00:00 GMT517526ad-20c9-4bbd-9826-887e7d3d66d8How are other managed services providers supporting end-user populations today? Is providing end-user support critical to the future success of your business?
Managed services providers are often asked to support end-users as part of their service portfolio, but delivering this function is sometimes a challenge for organizations without existing or scalable end-user support capabilities. Some providers embrace this function, while others shy away. What should you be considering when adding this capability to your portfolio?

To help examine the challenges and opportunities in supporting an “End-User Help Desk” capability, TSIA recently completed a short poll of our members about their support of end-users in managed services.

Before we look at the results, let’s take a moment to get on the same page about the use of some common, and commonly confusing, terminology related to the use of “Service Desk” and “End-User Help Desk”.

]]>Thu, 27 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMT874b0f24-fa78-4ffb-a94c-af24c111748cI start most of my presentations with a statement that I believe the technology and services industry is undergoing the greatest period of change in the last 50 years. I give examples of how everything about selling technology is changing: who you sell to, what you sell, and how you sell are all becoming unrecognizable from how they were 5 years ago.

We have Sales leaders from the world’s largest technology companies asking us all the time what they can do to improve sales performance. When we talk to these Sales leaders, they all tell us the same three things:

Sales performance is not meeting expectations, either with new logos or existing accounts, and the old tactics aren’t working as well as they used to

The ways in which customers are consuming technology is changing; the move to XaaS is real and selling is becoming a more complex team activity

Business buyers are increasingly involved in the buying decision; there is an increasing need to be able to explain how a technology solution is going to deliver against a business outcome

In this post, I will outline where Sales organizations need to improve in order to address these challenges.

]]>Tue, 25 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMT30c6ee25-b45d-4241-92ce-74be331c7279A common question that TSIA receives is, “What should I charge for my learning subscription/learning-as-a-service offer?” This question is akin to asking an architect, “How much will it cost me to build a house?” Before an architect can answer, some basic follow-up questions must be asked: “What’s the square footage?” “Is it a two-story or single-story home?” “How many bedrooms and bathrooms?” Once this information is ascertained, the architect is in a better position to provide a price.

And so it goes with determining subscription pricing, which is impacted by the following:

What’s included in the subscription

The level of content provided

Whether the offer is an individual or enterprise subscription

So, how do you determine pricing for a successful learning subscription/learning-as-a-service (LaaS) offer?

]]>Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMTcc7a4506-557d-45fd-9cb0-a51a95afd6aa
It’s up to managers and senior leadership to ensure employee satisfaction, not only in the interest of retaining skilled employees and attracting new talent, but also because dissatisfied employees directly lead to dissatisfied customers. In this post, I will share the qualitative and quantitative elements of employee loyalty programs and the results you can expect, which goes beyond Support and can apply to any company looking to keep their employees engaged and reduce customer support attrition.
]]>Tue, 18 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMTc1a3e0e2-0665-402f-8a46-397620cd9aa6At TSIA, we’re a group of data fanatics on a mission to give your technology company the fact-based insight you need to achieve profitable growth. We do this by collecting, analyzing, and triple-validating performance data from across the technology and services industry and boiling it down into proven action plans you can use to get and stay ahead in an evolving marketplace.

TSIA members have access to the vast repository of reports based on the data we collect through benchmarks and member surveys, but we also track and provide public information that gives us a snapshot of the current state of the tech industry, which we divide into three major indices: The Technology & Services 50, Cloud 40, and Industrial Equipment 40. Here’s a bit about each one and how they can help you better understand where your company fits with your industry peers.

]]>Thu, 13 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMT4835ee1e-0083-41bf-9c0b-8323d2577af0While many technology companies are struggling under the weight of rapid product commoditization and the upheaval of the XaaS business model shift, there remains tremendous opportunities to deliver revenue growth from maintenance and support offers.

So, how do you do this? TSIA has identified three key levers that produce optimized support revenue outcomes and can help you grow your service business:

Attaching New Contracts: This lever is defined as the rate at which new “for fee” support contracts are sold at the point of the technology.

Support Contract Renewal: This lever is defined as the rate at which support contracts are renewed at the end of each contract term.

Upsell to Premium Support: This lever is defined as the rate at which you’re further monetizing relationships with existing customers by selling them additional services.

]]>Tue, 11 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMTb266cea4-8a5d-48dd-a709-b3967c1561d5
Sales management roles in the past hired largely on the person’s ability to motivate, encourage, and manage a team to achieve a result. This was largely about having the right personality. Increasingly the new demands on Sales management positions are far more analytical and about positioning value, being able to articulate business outcomes, logical reasoning, etc.

Therefore, the most successful Sales managers of the future need to have a strong balance of motivational and intellectual capabilities—in other words, they need to have both a high IQ (Intelligent Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient).]]>Thu, 06 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMTb97fdf4f-55af-4d21-a8a8-abd6f0eb604dTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research practices TSIA has to offer. Here’s a bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 31 May 2019 12:00:00 GMTb38ea31c-eed2-4bf8-ab20-13aaa1eb8b09After each of our Technology & Services World conferences, I write a blog about “what I heard.” Every minute I am not presenting, I’m sitting in a 1:1 room having meetings with TSIA members and partners. In addition to those meetings, at our recent San Diego event I hosted two breakfast networking sessions and had dozens of conversations after presentations and in the TSW | EXPO. Now that I’ve had some time to process all that I heard, the conversations seemed to coalesce into four themes:

Progress is being made on digital support channels, but they are poorly integrated

TSIA’s coverage of artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t specific enough

The biggest pain points with professional services automation (PSA) may be tactical, not strategic

Increasing collaboration and networking opportunities

]]>Wed, 29 May 2019 12:00:00 GMT905bb867-47fb-48ce-80d1-e3e6ba7d3243Over the last year, TSIA research has seen an incredible uptick in member questions about how to scale customer success. This question can refer to either their Customer Success organization or overall strategy in helping their customers achieve their desired outcomes with their technology offers. Whether you’re new to the concept of customer success or already have an established function in place, it’s important to consider how your customer success strategy will scale.

In this post, I’ll be sharing 6 opportunities you can take to scale your Customer Success organization.

]]>Thu, 16 May 2019 12:00:00 GMT5125d689-e84f-494b-8dfe-492532af2e4e
In XaaS, every decision large and small that Product Management makes in the process of discovering, designing, creating, and launching their solutions can have an acceleration or deceleration effect on these metrics. These metrics are the very ones that have a big impact on success of the XaaS business, and every decision counts.]]>Tue, 14 May 2019 12:00:00 GMT06ae819c-9dfd-43d7-8591-959f5138d150
]]>Wed, 08 May 2019 23:00:00 GMT881f5da8-6920-43f6-92ca-6d02820be7bcWed, 08 May 2019 00:00:00 GMTcc460871-9696-4880-be86-db168d4f688dAt TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology and services organizations both large and small grow and advance in the technology industry. We'd like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as companies already a part of the TSIA community who have renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research practices that TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.
]]>Sat, 04 May 2019 12:00:00 GMT73c5a3b3-abc5-4acb-bd0f-a472c3ab7d71After every Technology & Services World conference, I write a recap of the top trends and issues I heard from my dozens of formal one-on-one meetings, questions asked during and after conference sessions, and more casual conversations in hallways and in the TSW | EXPO. As I am finalizing my content for the conference next week, there are some topics I am expecting to be asked about based on the large volume of inquiries I have received from members over the last few months.

In this blog post, I will highlight those for you, along with some recommendations for TSW sessions to attend for each topic.

]]>Thu, 02 May 2019 12:00:00 GMT2f0a4194-9d44-42d3-94e8-19385b81bfd8What is the best measure of product success in a recurring revenue business model? And how to you ensure that your organization engages in the most effective practices to drive product success at scale? As a product management leader, you will need to answer these questions, but where do you start?

Most would agree that the key to XaaS (Anything-as-a-Service) product success for any enterprise technology solution is when the customer declares it valuable to helping them solve a problem. Assuming that’s a given, do you have a repeatable approach to creating and delivering true value to highly satisfied customers that’s systematically repeatable over time?

If so, you are likely seeing positive Net Promotor Scores (NPS), growing Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), and growing market share. The fruits of the Product Management team’s labors are realized in these scorecards, much to the pleasure of business leaders.

]]>Thu, 25 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMT7ac9e711-c6ac-43f2-b8ef-d0b94e4fd45dThe TSIA T&S 50 Index tracks the 50 largest technology and services companies. The TSIA Cloud 40 tracks the performance of the 40 largest born-in-the-cloud companies. The trend is clear—the commoditization of technology over the past decade has taken significant profits off the table for the vast majority of technology providers. At the same time, customers are demanding new consumption models and shareholders are pushing for recurring revenue streams that demonstrate predictability of results.

Did you know that less than 20% of technology-as-a-service (XaaS) business deliver, or see a pathway to consistently delivering, acceptable operating profit, even with scale?

]]>Thu, 25 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMT5646210a-d971-4990-b582-3636b11030daAcross the technology industry, product revenue growth rates are flat to declining while services revenues are on the rise. Customers are choosing to consume their tech on a subscription basis as part of new “as-a-service” models, and if you think your traditional product-centric technology company is immune to the rise of as-a-service offers, you’re fooling yourself.

This is why the technology industry’s leading companies have begun changing their business models to focus less on products and be more about services and customer outcomes. TSIA has identified 4 new emerging economic engines, two of which that involve managed services that we highly recommend you model your business after in order to meet this dramatic change and increase your revenues.

]]>Wed, 24 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMTc96ea543-abea-42d8-89d3-287a00b7844bThe Age of Aquarius is more than just a song popularized by the musical Hair. It’s an astrological term denoting either the current or forthcoming astrological age, depending on the method of calculation. Current characteristics of the Aquarian age have been described as follows:

“Aquarius is visionary and creative, but rebellious, too. Aquarius’ job is to challenge authority, tear down existing structures, and replace the outdated with something better. Thus, Aquarius can be capable of great extremes.”

Lest I sound like a “new ager”, it seems like the technology industry is living through its own Age of Aquarius, replete with tearing down structures and replacing the outdated with something better. One just needs to look at the proliferation of XaaS, the “anything-as-a-service” moniker, in the marketplace. It is the advent of XaaS business models in conjunction with micro-content that has created a new age of content development.

]]>Thu, 18 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMTe9a21ebf-e9d3-40db-ab8e-8673d6adb631Determining the right pricing model for IT professional services in the technology industry is neither simple nor easy. While it’s important to remain competitive and convey the value of your services, these goals must be balanced and aligned with the overall needs of company growth and customer success.

In this post, I’ll explain how you determine what your professional services pricing model and pricing parameters should be, with the help of the TSIA benchmark data.

]]>Mon, 15 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMT45c9fb95-91d6-4775-9c65-e85a88c80723Services teams interact with customers more than 10x as often as their Sales counterparts. But, unlike outreach through traditional Sales or Marketing, these interactions are often welcomed and valued by customers because they come with prescriptive advice for achieving a specific outcome with their purchase.

Many technology organizations are under pressure to grow revenue, but don’t always get more Sales or Marketing resources to help them get that done. So, they’re finding ways to utilize the service interactions that are already occurring to not only drive upsell revenue, but also to help customers arrive at better outcomes. At TSIA, we refer to this process as “expand selling”.

Here’s a real-world example of successful expand selling, illustrated in one of the most creative and innovative uses of Services interactions that TSIA has encountered: Microsoft’s Achieve More program. By empowering their Support agents to do more than just fix the problem at hand, Microsoft was able to reduce churn and increase both revenue and customer satisfaction through an “uptelling” strategy.

]]>Thu, 11 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMT1eb44ee5-83c4-4d3d-a40a-dbeb031575ecAs the head of TSIA’s Support Services research practice, I’ve had a noticeable uptick in questions from TSIA member companies related to Support recruiting and hiring. These questions are specifically around motivating staff, helping staff deal with the large amount of change they face in their roles, and how to hire and build a Support team for the next generation of Support.
]]>Tue, 09 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMT7bb770f8-c26f-46c4-8197-009f0f1e498f“Should customer success managers (CSMs) own the contract renewal process?” is perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions by Customer Success organizations in TSIA’s membership community. This also appears to be a hotly debated topic in the customer success blogosphere.

However, I would encourage a different approach to this question: Should your Customer Success organization own some portion of your company’s revenue? The answer to this question is “yes”. In this post, I’m going to share the reason why, and offer 3 tips you can use to get started.

]]>Thu, 04 Apr 2019 12:00:00 GMT284d0cc7-16dd-4ead-bb8a-12de32b6f126In the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT), there has been a shift from devices being data consumers to data producers and consumers. What was once a one-way street has now become a cyclical relationship where the loop between devices and people has been closed.

This closed loop is generating an enormous amount of data, and in order to make sense of it all, there needs to be a level of processing and computation of data at some point in the loop. For industrial equipment and healthcare technology companies, this data overload problem can be addressed with edge computing.

Commoditization of technology capabilities (as seen in TSIA’s Technology & Service 50 index)

The shift to subscription-based offers

The unprofitable and unscalable nature of many subscription offers (as seen in TSIA’s Cloud 40 index)

As the stewards of growth and profitability for their companies, Product Management can and must effectively counter these trends.

]]>Thu, 28 Mar 2019 12:00:00 GMTc5dbe3c3-b5a7-44a0-9362-efe98bd08a79At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology and services organizations both large and small grow and advance in the technology industry. We'd like to take the opportunity to welcome our newest members, as well as companies already a part of the TSIA community who have renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research practices that TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.
]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2019 12:00:00 GMT93557845-74a0-4954-b894-99e6859e0e7aTSIA STAR Awards are the best way to do just that!

We’re happy to announce that the nomination period for the 2019 STAR Awards is now open. If you’re a current TSIA member, you’re invited to nominate your company for a chance to win one of the highest honors in the technology and services industry. Here’s everything you need to know about the awards, including this year’s categories, benefits of winning, and how to apply.]]>Thu, 21 Mar 2019 12:00:00 GMT7b2aba57-d91b-4b9a-b0e8-4b7741ce376f
]]>Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:00:00 GMT3610e5aa-2282-4445-9d4c-d2e2cc7ca84fAt TSIA, we provide technology and services businesses with the insights they need to grow, advance, and achieve their desired outcomes in our rapidly evolving industry. At the heart of this in-depth research are TSIA's research executives, who keep their fingers on the pulse of what's new and what's next in tech in order to deliver compelling content, best practices, and tools to our members.

To highlight the brilliant people behind the research that makes TSIA what it is, we've invited the VP of Subscription Sales research, Martin Dove, to tell us a bit about himself, his role at TSIA and share his thoughts on what it means to sell subscription-based, “as-a-service” (XaaS) offers.

]]>Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:00:00 GMTd4e88b79-b3e5-4f91-9373-00be3aa1750eLet’s talk about the elephant in the room: most tech companies that are not pure-breed managed services providers (MSPs) have a love/hate relationship with their managed services business. They know managed services is a potential revenue growth engine for them, yet they worry about how MS revenues will affect their P&L.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that managed services was “dilutive” to the company’s margins, I could buy ad space in Times Square announcing that managed services is one of the fastest growing lines of service. Leaders of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) often fear that offering managed services will cause “channel conflict”, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The operating model of traditional OEMs was designed to optimize the push of prepackaged products to customers via large, up-front deals. The goal of this CapEx model is to get the maximum amount of product assets transferred from the OEM’s balance sheet to the customer’s balance sheet in one big order, with 70% or more of the total purchase price paid up front.

]]>Thu, 07 Mar 2019 13:00:00 GMTcf94c1ee-1ce3-4f73-800a-e5bf243c3167Your company’s ability to provide an exceptional customer experience starts from within. By empowering your employees and fostering a positive internal culture, your workforce can become your brand’s biggest advocates. Join us March 28 for our virtual summit, "The ROI of Building a Powerful Employee Culture," where you’ll learn about the many benefits of keeping your employees engaged and how internal culture is the make-or-break factor in the success of any business.
]]>Tue, 05 Mar 2019 13:00:00 GMT89751757-7bfb-45ab-ba6e-2a17df1a30ebFri, 01 Mar 2019 13:00:00 GMT44bdf37b-876e-4e11-ae96-6f0838da7218for fee premium service contracts. It’s also a smart revenue protection strategy, as customers are increasingly challenging the value proposition of basic service levels and how they align with their changing priorities. When you put the same offer in front of customers year over year, they either expect to pay less for that same offer or will decide not to renew at all.

So, it behooves companies to have a compelling premium service offer to both protect its overall service contract revenue stream and reap the financial rewards of the higher contract dollar values that premium offers provide.
]]>Thu, 28 Feb 2019 13:00:00 GMTd5f4ea37-0f49-44b2-96d7-0b1963132607Crowdsourcing. On-demand services. The Uber model. The emerging trend of outsourcing services ordinarily performed by internal staff and resources to a large pool or network of labor providers is on the top of everyone’s mind, but what does it mean for field service management? In this post, I’m going to explore what this new generation of outsourcing looks like, how it applies to field services, and what it means for you.
]]>Thu, 21 Feb 2019 13:00:00 GMTfde19dce-3303-46b9-99b8-2c902e72e6deOne of the most common questions that salespeople have to consider is whether an RFP (request for proposal) is worth responding to. This process of qualifying in or out of an opportunity pursuit is one of the skills that sets really successful salespeople from those that achieve only moderate success.

Precious sales resources should not be spending time working on pursuing deals that either you will not win or are not truly aligned to your business goals.

]]>Tue, 19 Feb 2019 13:00:00 GMT8163de8e-a074-4b5c-8786-7b9121da9c9e"Softening momentum, high uncertainty" is the key takeaway from the International Monetary Fund's January 2019 World Economic Outlook. One reason is that outside the United States, industrial production has decelerated, particularly of capital goods. This is why alarm bells are ringing in a lot of industrial equipment (IE) companies. Additionally, executives should consider the long-term trends as well, which is that the Internet of Things (IoT) will speed up the trend towards the outcome economy.
]]>Thu, 14 Feb 2019 13:00:00 GMT404819c8-fb62-447c-ab4e-17c4d2fc0408The use of blockchain for IoT data transmission is very much in the hype phase of new technology adoption, meaning people are talking about doing it more than actually doing it. When talking to TSIA member companies about their current and expected use of blockchain, the most common answer boils down to, “We are looking in to it, but aren’t actively adopting it at this time.

When it comes to the use of blockchain to address security concerns with IoT data transmission, thinking of it as only a security solution is a misappropriation of the technology. Blockchain isn’t a data security solution, it’s an information sharing and transparency solution.

]]>Thu, 07 Feb 2019 13:00:00 GMT0c1453da-09df-41bb-b939-0d09246385b6Over the last several years, TSIA has been analyzing and forecasting the incredible disruption “as-a-service” technology (XaaS)offers will have on traditional technology business models. Our research has found that one of the more pervasive effects of industry transformation has been services organizational convergence —the merging of previously independent service lines into organizational structures that improve the customer experience and reduce the cost to deliver.

As industry transformation brings about the impetus for increasing services organizational convergence, it primarily falls to the service lines to figure out how best to navigate their own missions and charters while everyone (and we mean everyone) in the company works to improve the customer experience and reduce the cost to deliver. As a result, navigating organizational convergence is a huge business challenge that is impacting Professional Services in a wide variety of contexts.

]]>Thu, 31 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT78ccaaae-4362-492e-9814-a9f1ac528b1fTechnology & Services World conferences are where Services, Sales, and Product Management leaders come to stay current on the latest technology industry trends and get actionable insights for future success.

Our upcoming spring conference will be taking place May 6-8 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, the premier waterfront hotel in beautiful downtown San Diego. Here’s a glimpse at the unforgettable learning and networking opportunities you can only get by attending TSW!

]]>Tue, 29 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMTf73b1e76-9ef3-4b78-b592-881b2feab344TSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research practices that TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 24 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT0a59cbd2-1564-4b92-bcf3-505e741f7c35In the United States alone, the size of the “self-help” industry is almost $10 billion per year. People seek out guidance on how to lose weight, mend relationships, or kick a bad habit. But the point of nearly every “self-help” resource is that no one else is going make it happen for you—ultimately, you have to do it yourself.

As a Service leader with revenue or profit targets, you also have the ability to help yourself and be less reliant on your Sales and Marketing teams hit your numbers. You can utilize the Service and Customer Success interactions your teams are already having to discover, drive, and even close new service revenue with existing customers.

]]>Tue, 22 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT87430d6c-4a1c-47c6-b3b6-ed143a0a50ffThere’s no doubt that there’s a talent war happening in field services. With older, skilled workers reaching retirement age, there’s an increasing need to hire new talent that not only has the right skillset, but also is likely to stay with the company for the long haul.

The fact of the matter is, employees have choices, and in order to attract and retain top field service talent you need in order to succeed, you’ll need to know what your desired workforce is looking for. TSIA has uncovered some of the top requirements job-seekers expect of their employers, which I call “The 3 Cs”—employees are looking for organizations that can provide them with a career, an engaging culture, and constant valuable communication that will help them do their job better.

]]>Thu, 17 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMTdaf4cc15-569b-454d-8ba2-ac46886fa4aeTue, 15 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT5ca65534-b06a-492a-8e5a-b0d7bf17cbdaThu, 10 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT50f928a8-4f4b-4bd0-a5ef-eb24ef9f10fcI was pleased to present at DevOps Enterprise Summit in Las Vegas recently on the essential and mutually beneficial partnership between Product Management and DevOps, which is the combo of software development (Dev) and information technology operations (Ops). The event itself was an insightful few days to acquire an updated perspective on how the DevOps community of practitioners view the “business”, which is personified by Product Management.

In this two-part blog series, I will discuss the following:

What is DevOps?

The state of DevOps deployment in B2B technology organizations today

The case for alignment between Product Management and DevOps

What Product Management can learn from DevOps

8 tips for achieving a deeper Product Management/DevOps alliance

Let’s start with the first two points.

]]>Tue, 08 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMTec77169c-696d-483e-ba98-1381c84eac5cTo kick off the New Year, the TSIA research team wanted to share with you their best recent tech blog posts specific to their areas of industry expertise. Get a refresher on emerging trends in technology and services or catch up on what you might have missed to start 2019 with great TSIA insights!
]]>Thu, 03 Jan 2019 13:00:00 GMT397d5f54-6b27-4d35-954a-3ef775078c55Fri, 21 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT6709dbb4-8d35-4b74-b763-3a004ec609b3What has the biggest impact on the success of your managed services business? Though managed services is one of the fastest growing segments of the technology industry, many managed services providers lack certain organizational processes, which actively hinders their ability to grow and succeed. TSIA has identified hundreds of capabilities managed services organizations can implement to drive compelling results around revenue growth, profit contribution, and revenue retention, but here are 4 steps your company can take today to start the journey toward improvement.
]]>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT13783b41-db39-48b6-96cd-549801806052Earlier this year, I spoke with over 30 senior executives from across the technology and services industry, all of whom have responsibility for their companies’ sales and go-to-market strategies. They all agreed on three major factors that are having a profound impact on their companies:

Revenue growth is not living up to expectations; whether it’s from new or existing accounts, performance is not where shareholders need it to be.

The shift to the subscription, or XaaS, business model is putting strain on their income statement and sales operating practices.

Business buyers are increasingly responsible for their own technology budget, and they want to talk about business outcomes and not about features or functions.

Within the context of these three observations, I’ve written this blog to talk about how moving to a more vertical go-to-market posture can help technology and services companies grow revenues and improve sales performance.

]]>Tue, 18 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMTd0db84b9-2bc5-4cc9-b6c0-83765a3a2360In just the past year, TSIA has received a significant number of questions from our members about employee engagement. Between looming talent wars and a millennial workforce that expects different behavior from their employers, technology and services organizations need to rethink their corporate culture and increase employee satisfaction.

Is your company doing enough to attract and retain the right talent? While creating an engaged workforce requires holistic cultural change and buy-in from top-level executives, here are 3 ways your organization can start making the shift toward better employee engagement.

]]>Thu, 13 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMTba6665b3-2379-457b-b0dd-03ff876f23b4delivery of services and all of the complexities around resource and project management.
]]>Wed, 12 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT4294be55-edc5-409e-9c31-558d25e6cb40Before a company can successfully realize value from the wealth of information generated by IoT (Internet of Things) data, they must first understand and mitigate the risks created through interconnected devices.

For healthcare technology companies, leaving IoT-transfered data unprotected can have consequences to the very human lives they are working to improve. For industrial equipment companies, having their entire fleet connected through the internet leaves vulnerabilities for plant take over, or information interception. Existing cybersecurity measures for technology that protect the data at each device source are well-documented, but protecting the data while it is transferred is where the vulnerability lies within IoT.

]]>Tue, 11 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT46bd4edb-4fd7-419a-971d-4844cc7324ea
]]>Thu, 06 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMTd062ea75-5ac1-488d-86f7-9e20ded83445Ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky famously said, “I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” It’s a popular quote because it vividly illustrates something that everyone wants to do, but may not understand how. Here, I will look at how to do this in a services business.

Firstly, we have to focus our energy into looking forward. Most services-centric businesses are prone to manage based on what has happened, or at best what is happening. Not enough energy goes into projecting what is likely to happen next, and projecting accurately enough to take corrective action at the correct time.

]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT4cc52b4b-7fa4-43aa-8787-d79745c1c07e
]]>Mon, 03 Dec 2018 13:00:00 GMT4e2ee4cc-01e3-461d-a1c3-ab6808f8a1abFri, 30 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMTfbb4deb9-6f34-46bc-af52-d906681dcf4aFor well over a decade, TSIA has been helping our members improve and optimize their Professional Services businesses. In this time, we’ve noticed one persistent consistent obstacle: a lack of alignment. Misalignment within Professional Services (PS) organizations can come in many forms, but it is a pervasive and harmful problem.

That’s why we’ve devoted countless hours to create aids, frameworks, and thought leadership to help our Professional Services members gain and maintain alignment. In this post, I’m going to share how you can tell if your Professional Services organization is suffering from misalignment and provide some ways to get started in fixing the problem.

]]>Thu, 29 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMTacafc93f-ed68-461f-aecb-4930f4873678
If you were to ask project managers in some enterprises that have tried to integrate business agility principles into their policies and workflows, they will tell a sad and painful story about over-promising and under-delivering. In fact, most (if not all) of them will reveal that overall performance, results, and customer satisfaction have regressed since the business agility experiment began, and employee morale has plunged.
]]>Wed, 28 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMT6f45c688-2dcd-417d-8385-be5e5d3731ccview online! Relive your favorite moments and share key takeaways with your team to apply what you’ve learned about becoming LAER efficient, the customer experience, and employee engagement to your operation.

This playlist contains all of the main stage presentations so that you can keep the energy of TSW going whenever and wherever you want.
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]]>Thu, 15 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMT91ffbaf3-90ae-45a0-8f79-e3581646af46As the unofficial ambassador to the DevOps community from Product Management, I recently attended the DevOps Enterprise Summit in Las Vegas (#DOES18). I presented on the relationship between these two groups and attempted to help DevOps understand more about the world of Product Management.

While there, I caught up with Ajay Chankramath of Oracle and chatted with him about his journey in DevOps and the handshakes between Development/Quality/Release/Operations (DevOps) and Product Management. Below is a summary of our conversation. Ajay makes the case for a tighter handshake between DevOps and Product Management to achieve the goal of delivering the “right” functionality faster, more efficiently, and more reliably.

]]>Wed, 14 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMT082498e1-7e9d-42ab-82de-1e8e49048aaeThu, 08 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMTc3245db6-f1c6-40a6-9cd6-ee6e72909492TSIA Expand Selling research is designed to help our member companies grow revenue from their existing customers. However, this can’t happen without effective collaboration between Sales and Services, which means that there needs to be some shared understanding between these two functions.

To help you improve cross-functional collaboration, I’m going to provide some insight into the language and world of Sales so that the non-salespeople within your organization can better understand their challenges, specific KPIs, and identify opportunities for better communication. This way, all of your internal teams can work together more effectively to not only grow revenue, but also improve customer outcomes.

]]>Thu, 01 Nov 2018 12:00:00 GMT197779cd-5b38-4f6c-9b8c-b0af1969bd48This past TSW was my 27th TSIA conference, and I can honestly say it was my favorite conference experience so far. I received great feedback on my content, the attendees were incredibly engaged, and there was tremendous buzz throughout the hallways and EXPO, and even the hotel elevators. Going non-stop from 7 AM to 10 PM every day was exhausting, but I had countless conversations across scheduled one-on-ones, questions in breakouts, hallway conversations, etc., and I always learn as much as the attendees from these exchanges.

I captured a lot of thoughts in a notebook, on my laptop, scribbled on business cards, and even voice notes on my Pixel XL 2 (sorry, can’t justify the 3 just yet), and looking back over all of those conversations, a series of themes emerged. I think this represents some interesting trends, or at least what was top of mind with the folks I spoke with. Good things to consider as we head into planning for 2019.

]]>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMTcd2728a5-5864-4b00-ba23-9f46dbafaca6
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]]>Wed, 17 Oct 2018 20:14:22 GMT6000a55c-03c5-4107-aa3b-ce53cb17181eSelling technology services is stuck in the dark ages. First, the services pricing and proposal process takes place in a silo, distant from the technology product or subscription sale. Second, services are almost always priced and sold using spreadsheets, proposal and SOW templates, and endless emails—just like it was 20 years ago. In this post, I will show ( with video!) how leading companies have solved both problems by adopting services CPQ (Configure Price Quote). Services CPQ is designed to make selling services fast, simple, spreadsheet free, and seamlessly integrated with technology product sales.
]]>Thu, 11 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMT9f2b6fcb-c0ac-4195-b859-b0683a9a5e97What does it mean to “put (something) on the long finger”? It’s a classic Irish expression meaning to delay or postpone something indefinitely. Being born and raised in Ireland, this is the expression that pops to mind as I observe the behavior of many B2B XaaS Product Management teams when it comes to instrumenting their products with the appropriate analytics to gain customer behavioral insights and then leverage these insights to influence the customer journey.
]]>Wed, 10 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMTf228ff2e-3ffc-4f92-953b-0b202af25dedTue, 09 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMT5ed8b2b1-ac90-4642-ad07-3e6adb56f0cbAs an industrial equipment or healthcare technology company, developing an IoT strategy is vital for navigating the digital transformation journey. The companies that come out on top will be those that embrace the disruption and learn to harness IoT-generated data to deliver on customer outcomes.

Although it’s easy to understand the necessity, actually deploying a successful IoT strategy comes with a collection of unique challenges for industrial equipment and healthcare technology companies. That’s why TSIA is dedicating a blog series called, “IoT Strategy for Healthcare and Industrial Equipment,” catered to addressing those unique challenges. Over the next several months, you will see blogs and quick polls relating to the following topics necessary for designing and deploying an IoT strategy.

]]>Fri, 05 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMT64b9c856-8708-4340-a5a1-6791b73ffeb1While it is important to focus on each of the letters, two are rising to the top: S (Shift the Support Culture) and F (Focus on the Employee).
]]>Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMTe642ce6b-3580-4737-930a-ef83c3e45f9c

Performance metrics

Skills and training

Compensation plans

Technology tools

Organizational charter

Before we detail all the differences (and there are plenty!), we have to answer the most important question: Why would I even want to change to this new Field Service organization?
]]>Tue, 02 Oct 2018 12:00:00 GMT0e19cbc4-5f2f-4d28-8451-3ff0c8658cda community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additionalresearch practice TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 27 Sep 2018 12:00:00 GMTe153993b-043e-4496-adb5-63e8484c719e
A result of this revenue growth is a growing number of existing subscription customers. Technology companies spend ridiculous amounts of money landing net new customers, but that’s not the end of the story—it is hopefully the beginning of a long relationship with these subscription customers. However, contrary to popular belief, renewals don’t just happen on their own. It requires investment in an effective renewal process and renewal coverage model.
]]>Thu, 20 Sep 2018 12:00:00 GMT8e474786-7b60-437d-916c-40b7b5e3a6dbTue, 18 Sep 2018 12:00:00 GMT4c5e949d-071d-43e5-80f2-f1f404c10fe4Many TSIA member companies have evolved their own version of the LAER framework that defines the supplier view of the customer life cycle. A common thread between 90% of these organizations is a well-defined charter that includes at least two of three common charters outlined in our framework: Adoption, Expansion and Retention. While we see many new capabilities and practices starting to emerge it is important to stop and ask if we are doing these new motions cost effectively or perhaps even more important, efficiently.

As customer success continues to “break glass” throughout the traditional organizational models, here are 5 expectations we would seek in the LAER Efficient Customer Success organization:

]]>Thu, 13 Sep 2018 12:00:00 GMT5599384b-b38b-40bc-a04f-453f45034ddeIf you’ve been following anything TSIA has been doing or saying for the last 5 years or so, you know how obsessed we are about the LAER model: Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew. This isn’t just an alphabet soup or a bunch of buzzwords. In fact, we believe that LAER is the best set of operating principles for just about any technology company today.

The LAER model is not a set of concepts specific to professional services. It’s really meant to describe the technology firm’s overall customer life cycle, particularly those firms that operate in an environment of technology-as-a-service (XaaS) where the focus is, at least in part, on recurring revenue streams.

]]>Tue, 11 Sep 2018 12:00:00 GMT4504164f-0ebb-44c2-be85-f3f96470e72a
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Adding to the tight labor market is that 4/10 field services organizations are forecasting a net hiring increase of 3% or more over the next 12 months. The harsh reality is that even with a 1:1 ratio of available workers to jobs, many of those available workers don’t have the right skills, and the ones that do are already in that aging demographic. So, where are you going to find employees? From other field services orgs. In this post, I’m going to talk about what you need to have in your playbook to win the field services talent war.
]]>Tue, 04 Sep 2018 12:00:00 GMT6468fc22-d446-4034-9d5e-c374fa7ffda3Thu, 30 Aug 2018 12:00:00 GMTb6102e24-348a-4126-9302-dec49274c571Wed, 29 Aug 2018 12:00:00 GMT759e0b0a-7180-4f4d-b2b2-dcba4061ea3c
]]>Thu, 23 Aug 2018 12:00:00 GMTf6774164-3529-450a-aca6-06c5aa26cd4bIn working with our Support Services members to help them achieve their business goals, we often see some common challenges arise among Support organizations. These challenges include financial pressure to reduce cost but deliver more, increased customer demand for “always on” support, and finding ways to lower customer effort, just to name a few.

To overcome these challenges, continue to move the innovation needle, and keep up with customer demands, TSIA has identified 9 areas Support organizations should focus on improving, which follows the T-R-A-N-S-F-O-R-M model below.

]]>Tue, 21 Aug 2018 12:00:00 GMT27eb128f-0aa3-4ddc-bc6d-78d8c38dcacfMost TSIA member companies have utilized our LAER framework and best practices to improve their Service and Customer Success engagement models. Unfortunately, this innovative approach hasn’t permeated into Sales teams or their processes to the same degree. At most companies, selling to existing customers looks exactly the same as selling to new customers. The Sales team handles everything; there’s no difference in compensation, and there’s no difference in process. Marketing doesn’t even change their approach or messaging.

Putting your existing customers through the same process as your new prospects is massively inefficient. It would be like my wife and I trying to make dinner plans by using Tinder. Would it work? I guess so. But we already know each other, we already have regular lines of communication, and have a pretty good idea what the other one probably wants. You have those same assets with existing customers, and if you want to drive more revenue with them (and provide better outcomes in the process), it’s time to stop treating them like you don’t already have a relationship with them. Here are three ways to approach the problem:

Car owners know that their wheels need to be in alignment, and it’s not hard to tell when they aren’t. Your car might seem to drift to one side, or maybe your car is driving straight, but your steering wheel isn’t centered or vibrates at higher speeds. Any of these problems is a clear indication that you’re out of alignment. If you don’t get it fixed, there are lots of problems that will likely ensue: your tires will wear unevenly, you’ll get worse gas mileage, there’s a higher risk of tire blow outs or poor traction. In short, it’s plainly foolish and counterproductive to ignore or overlook the problem.

The fact of the matter is, the economics of the existing business models within the technology industry are changing. To meet this change head on and come out successful on the other side, tech suppliers must shift their focus toward providing an unparalleled customer experience, which starts with ensuring that customers are able to adopt their technology purchases to receive the maximum value. Effectively doing this requires improving your internal culture to promote cross-functional collaboration so that customer growth is no longer a question of whether the account belongs to Sales or Services, but how the entire organization is helping the customer achieve their desired outcomes.
]]>Thu, 05 Jul 2018 10:00:00 GMT07175cc0-2236-4a5e-86d5-dd496c5add50
]]>Tue, 03 Jul 2018 10:00:00 GMT8a386f7a-401e-4e3c-9088-5c38f9870869LAER (Land, Adopt, Expand, and Renew), which we created to aid technology providers in making the transition from traditional business models focused on simply selling more assets toward one that promotes retaining and growing customers successfully by way of facilitating customer outcomes.

At its core, the LAER framework is the answer to the technology industry’s growing need for Sales and Service models that don’t just land new customers, but also use data to systematically drive customer adoption so they can realize the value of the technology they’ve purchased, paving the way for account renewal and increased spend. This is absolutely essential for “as a service” or subscription offers, where the ability to prevent customer churn can mean the difference between success and failure.
]]>Thu, 28 Jun 2018 10:00:00 GMT05def6a6-88a2-4aab-93a0-e93c01655192TSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.
]]>Tue, 26 Jun 2018 10:00:00 GMTf85592d4-f0d8-44c4-8532-7400a1270745Voice of Value podcast by Ecosystems, which aims to help Sales and Marketing leaders sell more effectively by making their value clear. The podcast host, founder and CEO of Ecosystems, Chad Quinn, asked me to share my insights on the transformation taking place within the roles of Sales and Services and how they’re working together to land and retain customers, which aligned perfectly with our conference theme of “Blending Service and Sales Motions.” Here are the links to both episodes, as well as a bit about what you can expect to learn in each. Thanks again to Ecosystems for inviting me to be on your show!
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]]>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 12:00:00 GMTf737065e-be67-4e30-a761-6d5b90f58dd1As always, our recent Technology Services World conference in San Diego was a very busy three days. On Monday, I had six presentations, including my keynote, Power Hour, and presenting the 2018 TechBEST Awards. Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent most of the time in my 1:1 room with a full schedule of member and partner meetings from 8 AM to 5 PM.

As I look over the notes I took in those meetings, a couple of themes emerged that I wanted to share those with you, as they reflect what is top of mind with our attendees and are also frequent inquiry topics with TSIA members.

]]>Tue, 12 Jun 2018 10:00:00 GMT12b30bb1-92cc-4ef0-a163-c36f1b68d9f0TSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 31 May 2018 17:36:54 GMT9407936b-c1a4-45ad-902e-96e345f9698dTechnology Services World. Yesterday I spent the majority of the day in 1:1 meetings with members and partners, and that will continue today. I’ll be back next week with a recap of the top themes I heard in these conversations. For now, after yesterday’s long day of over 70 sessions, starting at 10 AM and running until 5:30 PM, I wanted to give you a peek at yesterday’s top attended sessions. Nothing can better show which issues are top of mind with technology and services professionals than seeing which topics attracted the largest crowds. ]]>Wed, 09 May 2018 14:12:00 GMTc7e9fef1-f82b-4820-98b3-0da2e659042dTechnology Services World conference in beautiful San Diego kicked off yesterday, and as always it was a very busy day. The morning started at 7:30 AM with the Partner Advisory Board meeting. I gave an overview of the results from my 13th annual Global Technology Survey, and we discussed various topics including digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI), and a topic several of us are working on for sessions at our fall conference in Las Vegas: employee engagement. ]]>Tue, 08 May 2018 14:36:00 GMT613f4593-6e8b-406c-8f64-bd74a6cb809cth annual survey, I’m happy to say that we’ve brought back the TechBEST awards to TSW! Here are this year’s finalists and winners of the TechBEST Awards, which are presented in two categories: Best in Adoption, and Best in Satisfaction.]]>Mon, 07 May 2018 22:40:00 GMTcefaca76-4be3-40d0-942b-ad95de2b4efeTechnology Services World (TSW) conference is coming up, May 7-9 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, right on the Embarcadero in San Diego. Our theme for this conference is “Blending Service and Sales Motions.” I have the honor of giving the pre-conference keynote at 11:45am, and this gives me the opportunity to talk about a trend I’m seeing for professional services: microtransactions.]]>Tue, 01 May 2018 10:00:00 GMTb5631788-492a-4077-b16b-d39678083b9cTSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 27 Apr 2018 22:44:01 GMT5ab832a5-c49f-45bb-ab2c-892f1325281fAccording to TSIA's PS Benchmark Study from Q2 2018, it takes about 38 days for a technology services proposal to get to a customer. What if it only took a few days or a few hours? First, it would make customers and Sales teams a lot happier! Next, it would drive revenue due to significantly increased sales capacity. Finally, it would reduce the cost of sales operations. So, unless multi-week proposals is the best we can do as an industry, there is a major opportunity here. In this post, I will explain how (and how not) to automate sales proposals.
]]>Thu, 26 Apr 2018 22:59:43 GMTb66a275e-0417-4c6e-ab3d-6bfcd58ba03dregular contact with customers, they are in a prime position to uncover upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Instructors often hear things from students that indicate other needs that they or their company may have, and for which the instructor’s company offers a solution. This translates to a lead that can be forwarded to the Sales organization.]]>Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:28:33 GMT8c953f44-7e35-4a91-b2fb-8bb2b9a2281fthe LAER model, which consists of four key steps along the customer journey from the perspective of the technology supplier: Land, Adopt, Expand, and Renew. In this short animation, you’ll get a quick overview of each stage of the LAER model and how they relate to different functions within your organization.]]>Fri, 20 Apr 2018 17:51:08 GMT19defe34-3874-430d-9049-9395605f996bB4B, the conversations are changing.]]>Tue, 17 Apr 2018 17:43:42 GMTac87c3eb-e1b7-4a1a-881d-af2aeabe5755“LAER”) customer engagement model. It is rooted in TSIA’s belief that selling can be the natural, helpful outcome of a Services conversation, as long as it is taken within the mindset of helping the customer solve their problem, achieve their goals, and drive value from their technology investment.]]>Thu, 12 Apr 2018 17:55:42 GMTdbb3b6b6-6ae1-4e81-ba6a-d2627298b195TSIA’s LAER model is a framework that breaks the supplier’s perspective of the traditional customer engagement journey into four distinct phases: Land, Adopt, Expand, and Renew. As more companies begin to make the pivot to managing annual recurring revenue streams, there’s an industry-wide increase in the creation of LAER initiatives in order to follow a customer engagement plan that works with a subscription-based business model. I recently wrote an upcoming paper for TSIA members called, “4 Phases of Becoming LAER Efficient” that aims to help them assess where they are in efforts to creating a customer engagement model that cost-effectively works with customers in each of the four phases of LAER. Here’s a quick look at those four phases that can help you start thinking about where your company is in this process and where you need to be.]]>Tue, 10 Apr 2018 18:00:56 GMT0a8ff832-91af-4559-b699-4fe6f804e79bTSIA webinars! Hear directly from our research team and partner community about topics relevant to your business, whether you’re looking to solve a specific challenge or just want to stay current on industry trends. Here is a list of webinars we have coming up on the calendar that you can still register for, as well as a look at past webinars you can watch on-demand.]]>Fri, 06 Apr 2018 16:20:46 GMT5294fd63-3a24-48ff-af9f-a3cc79a5e530Thu, 05 Apr 2018 16:33:59 GMTbca65ee7-07d4-41b8-944b-f8d6899c631a“The Impact of Smart, Connected Products on Business Models,” I discuss how these new technologies are turning traditional business models upside down, while also sharing the benefits and some cautions surrounding smart, connected products.]]>Wed, 04 Apr 2018 00:19:18 GMTe53b7155-c875-4550-a90d-316e32830ed8introduce Spark, which is how Totango intends to provide their customers a fast path to scalable value. In Nick Mehta’s kickoff discussion at the CCO Summit, he spoke about how one of the important themes for customer success was to become more prescriptive to our customers. Whether it is use of technology or improved process, the theme of “scale” was very evident.]]>Thu, 29 Mar 2018 22:24:00 GMT0c2a2c0a-452f-4b6e-8c7b-c1c88e9a187fTSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 27 Mar 2018 13:46:00 GMT144ec78a-8f06-46a4-afae-cf7aa6869b5fOne of the top business challenges facing our Managed Services members is about selling managed services. In fact, this is easily the SBC (Service Business Challenge) that I spend the most time on while performing on-site workshops with them. It seems that most of the focus of the managed service provider is on the Land motion within the TSIA LAER model.

While selling managed services is, without a doubt a significant objective, the need to continually support, nurture, and grow your customer is just as important. When looking at the TSIA LAER model in the context of managed services, the Adopt, Expand, and Renew area is often grossly neglected by business owners. If organized and staffed properly, focusing on the AER portion of LAER will turn your managed services business into the gift that keeps on giving.

]]>Thu, 22 Mar 2018 17:03:00 GMTe7a930ca-31f3-4cca-b2d0-3d3d2ad38180Wed, 14 Mar 2018 17:05:29 GMT8ec8feef-868b-486e-b681-58a4257cec20most common service business challenges (SBCs) represented is how to improve PS price performance. That’s why for the last decade, TSIA has been capturing extensive professional services rates and pricing practices information in our Professional Services Market Rates Study. This study distills the latest developments in professional services pricing and collects detailed data surrounding 8 job titles at 3 levels in roughly 60 countries to provide our members with the most current market rates benchmarks and data. In this post, I’m going to share what this study can do for your organization through real-world examples of how it’s currently being applied to businesses in the industry.]]>Wed, 14 Mar 2018 00:24:38 GMTdb56d8b0-f45c-49d0-b03d-4eeb12c813f6The themes for our Technology Services World events are more than mere organizing principles for our conferences. They are expressions of the most pressing challenges that technology companies are facing. More than just helping structure the conference content, they are a direct reflection of what is trending in TSIA research, our extensive community of over 35,000 technology and services leaders, and the industry as a whole.

In other words, the TSW conference themes both drive and are driven by the broader concepts, content areas, and service business challenges that animate us and our member organizations. This has always been the case, and the theme for our upcoming TSW San Diego 2018 conference, “Blending Service and Sales Motions,” is no exception.

]]>Fri, 09 Mar 2018 23:54:00 GMT86cdbc87-e196-4d99-9a9b-704e00e47f94The cat is out of the bag: We now live in the age of the customer. While this reality has many implications in the world of the modern-day technology executive, what it really means is that listening to and taking action on customer feedback is essential for business growth.

Depending on who you ask, today’s organizations look to customer experience above many (if not all) success metrics. In fact, in the new knowledge economy, customer experience trumps all. A study by Walker showcases this evolution. A majority of customers (86%) will pay more for a better service.

So, how do you understand whether a customer experience is positive, negative or somewhere in between? According to Gartner, this all starts with collecting and acting on customer feedback.

]]>Thu, 08 Mar 2018 18:16:55 GMT171687b3-5d91-44ae-b78d-e2cc849ed0f0free virtual summit all about how to cost-effectively grow your revenue by getting your Services teams more involved in the sales process. During this 3-hour event, you’ll learn from industry experts about when, where, and how Services teams should (and should not) be involved in revenue generation.]]>Wed, 07 Mar 2018 03:10:37 GMTd7c2657a-09e9-49d0-b294-554993fe0c03We’ve all heard about how important data and data analytics are for the technology industry as a whole, but what does this mean specifically for Support organizations? Support has always had access to detailed customer data, but the ability to correctly capture, read, and apply the insights learned from this data, both directly and from support automation tools, is what can transform a Support organization into a pacesetter in the marketplace. That’s why the roles of data analyst and data scientists are becoming increasingly sought after in today’s Support organizations. To learn more about how Support orgs are investing in analytics experts, TSIA conducted a Quick Poll on the use of analytics for support services, which had some interesting results.
]]>Sat, 03 Mar 2018 00:09:57 GMTbd7ef79f-1569-4aa7-9389-6efa5882b3faFri, 02 Mar 2018 00:27:49 GMT09cabc8f-a554-47ca-b078-ab7f49516595two-part blog series all about how to digitally transform your services business. TSIA has already had the privilege of speaking with Librestream’s COO, Jereme Pitts, about how the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart, connected products are changing business models, while Librestream spoke with TSIA’s VP of field services and IoT research, Vele Galovski, about monetizing services with IoT. Here’s a brief look at that interview.]]>Tue, 27 Feb 2018 17:40:03 GMTc63b89e0-c980-4dff-ba59-6b5b2adf2c77TSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Mon, 26 Feb 2018 15:00:00 GMT614bafd6-bf34-4aec-99bc-f796cbc72425In TSIA’s ongoing mission to track the performance and evolution of managed services, one thing has become abundantly clear: managed services continues to be one of the fastest growing segments of the entire technology industry. More and more manufacturers are expanding their service offers to include managed services as they begin to understand it’s important connection to technology-as-a-service and the Cloud.

In fact, for many TSIA Managed Services members, managed services are a natural extension of their cloud solutions, and vice versa. Not only are manufacturers rapidly embracing managed services, most non-manufacturers are beginning to realize their process and practices are showing serious signs of aging and underinvestment. In this post, I’ll share 3 exciting trends across all managed service providers and what they might mean for your business.

]]>Thu, 22 Feb 2018 21:39:43 GMT59a42e02-9f68-4d89-a567-9246381c2777Wed, 21 Feb 2018 22:12:57 GMTeb0f117e-49c4-4ad0-8a8b-b3db79a53e0bThe growing trend of digital transformation is having a huge impact on the way traditional product and service-based businesses are run. But, there are many details within this broader concept that deserve a closer look, particularly its effect on current business models, training processes for field technicians and other staff, and delivering outcomes to customers. To provide an inside look at some of the more critical elements of the digital transformation journey, TSIA and Librestream have partnered to create a two-part blog series all about how to digitally transform your services business.

To get an inside look at how digital transformation is impacting traditional business models in both product and service-based organizations, I spoke with Jereme Pitts, the chief operating officer at Librestream, the leader in developing innovative mobile video collaboration solutions for field services, manufacturing, energy, and the public sector. In this interview, he shares his perspective of digital transformation, how it’s impacting technology and equipment companies, and offers his advice to traditional businesses looking to take on this transformation, both for their benefit and that of their customers.

]]>Wed, 21 Feb 2018 03:18:46 GMT71dc8033-dce5-4bb1-b84d-70d087f7d240Technology Services World conference this May, we’re going to be sharing a lot of insights following our theme, “Blending Service and Sales Motions.” Though our conference is called Technology Services World, the content we present relates to many roles within today’s technology companies. While Services, Sales, and Marketing leaders will absolutely benefit from this unique learning opportunity, I wanted to talk about 4 specific C-suite and executive titles that will benefit by attending and taking in all of the valuable lessons and insights from this event. ]]>Tue, 13 Feb 2018 19:36:53 GMT0404c13a-b231-40f9-a846-700fb4012c78SlideShare, we share the top 3 reasons why you need a chief renewal officer at your organization to take charge of this important revenue generating engine.]]>Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:55:33 GMT40a37caa-b0fb-4916-bdc9-8f699cc1be52“Helping will sell, selling won’t help,” is something that we repeat often here at TSIA, through our books, conferences, and research. That is because it is a concept that we truly believe in, because we’ve seen it in action time and again. If we apply this thought to data analytics, would it imply that data insights for the customer will sell, but data insights for the salesperson won’t help? I suppose it depends on the type of insights you’re able to gather.]]>Fri, 09 Feb 2018 19:52:15 GMT3428f42b-a260-4fea-8b10-03c64393b515“What Is Education Services?” I covered the basics of what the definition of education services is, and even touched upon what it isn’t. In this post, I will briefly cover the traditional forms of delivery used by most Education Services (ES) organizations and then discuss less traditional delivery options that are proving to be successful.]]>Thu, 08 Feb 2018 20:38:37 GMT09a0af16-3886-4fb6-be12-b4ec9e0eb7f0Tue, 06 Feb 2018 20:12:43 GMT6081cccb-2156-4f8d-b17d-9b5067026771Across the industry, the majority of technology companies are seeing flat or declining services revenues, causing CEOs to worry. However, there's good news in that managed services revenues are on the rise. In fact, managed services (MS) is growing faster than any other service line, with the total of MS revenues jumping from 6% of all services revenue to 23% since 2013. This has led to a huge opportunity for CEOs of technology companies that don't currently have a managed services business to begin taking advantage of this fast-growing and highly profitable revenue stream. In this slide deck, you'll learn the top 3 reasons why technology companies looking to stay profitable in this changing industry need to invest in managed services.
]]>Thu, 25 Jan 2018 18:00:08 GMT22110862-20a2-4c79-975a-1869907ff10ain a previous post, the adoption of PSA applications continues to grow at a rapid pace, including expanding the definition of what PSA tools can deliver for services organizations. Existing PSA solutions built a decade ago don’t deliver the breadth of functionality required to effectively manage a services business today. As a result, services organizations have been forced to turn to non-integrated and disparate systems to manage day-to-day activities, including project management, collaboration, and resource planning, among others.]]>Tue, 23 Jan 2018 11:00:00 GMTf349dae2-14b0-406f-ae12-3b3ff035add4Member Success team to ensure that our members are absorbing the most relevant content they need to solve their top business challenges, from research reports, business frameworks, quick tools, and more. The relationship between TSIA and our members is founded on open communication and trust, and aims to deliver the results-driven, customized attention that is the core mission of our Member Success team. Here’s a glimpse into how that relationship works, from member onboarding, developing customized success plans, and engaging our large community of services professionals to ensure your tech organization gets the results you want, even faster.]]>Fri, 19 Jan 2018 03:31:28 GMTb438903e-775c-42f5-ad09-4373ae14e161TSIA community who have recently renewed or expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 16 Jan 2018 11:00:00 GMT564e142e-be7d-4d99-bc55-38911c2dc902Congratulations! You are a managed services (MS) contributor and leader in a hardware or software original equipment manufacturer (OEM). You’ve been struggling with your company’s love/hate/embrace/ignore approach towards MS in the past. You’ve had your share of successes and failures acting as a change agent for your business and sometimes wondered if you were alone, if it was worth it, and if the business was ever going to realize its full potential.

And now, your executive management made a big splash about a new or renewed focus on MS! Maybe it was a call-out highlighting your MS capabilities in a 10k or a quarterly report, or even a press release or internal announcement about the importance of your company’s MS practice or key MS customer wins. Or, just maybe, MS was identified as one of your company’s “strategic pillars” going forward, and all your dreams about one of the hottest growth areas in tech are about to come true!

]]>Thu, 11 Jan 2018 20:06:38 GMT2c5f3088-d659-458c-b0a4-618ef634e9a9
Quoting in technology services looks a lot like it did 20 years ago. It’s slow and expensive, it’s error prone, it lacks visibility, and it often misses revenue opportunities. But, a quiet transformation is taking place as Services teams embrace a new technology: Configure Price Quote (CPQ) for Services. These teams are gaining new streams of frictionless revenue, innovating their pricing models, building attractive solution bundles, and radically simplifying their sales process. And, without spreadsheets, they are achieving a level of revenue and resource demand visibility once considered impossible.]]>Tue, 09 Jan 2018 20:26:21 GMT3587f315-9e05-4cb3-ab98-231a850a3e30Fri, 05 Jan 2018 03:37:35 GMT8d07b9db-b191-4124-8e6d-fb65b8c16436TSIA’s Expand Selling line of research, I’ve talked to dozens of companies who have tried to more tightly integrate their Services and Sales efforts. In some cases, they have attempted to utilize their Support or Customer Success teams to capture low-cost leads. In other cases, they’ve tried to involve their Professional Services or Managed Services delivery teams in the pre-sales process in order to more effectively sell services or increase margins. Most of the time, even with the best intentions and sometimes with substantial financial investments, these plans just don’t take root and flourish. They fizzle out after a few months.]]>Wed, 03 Jan 2018 03:44:33 GMT88147b4e-1ba6-486e-9f4a-3c4d471ab7d3TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 21 Dec 2017 11:00:00 GMT42dfb113-c683-4b88-bbe8-70022d172efaTue, 19 Dec 2017 11:00:00 GMT12492ddd-25b5-4be1-90d7-1b28d0513b29What is education services? It sounds like a trick question, but is it? The role and nature of education services (ES) organizations has been morphing over the past few years. However, one consistent element is that education services, or whatever name your company gives to a similar organization, is responsible for customer-facing training. Additionally, 82% of ES functions train channel partners and 75% provide technical training for internal employees, most commonly Sales, Pre-Sales, and Professional Services personnel.
While this describes the common audiences that ES organizations serve, it doesn’t answer the question, which really boils down to the charter of education services. Is it adoption? Is it enablement? Is it revenue? Is it customer success? While there are many things an ES organization can be, I’d venture to say that it is in fact all of these things, which is probably why many education organizations are going through an identity crisis.]]>Thu, 14 Dec 2017 21:41:48 GMTf9bc8e2e-96db-4054-aa3e-436e3adb98e9Wed, 13 Dec 2017 03:51:37 GMT78c01537-7ec5-4436-9973-7bf52fde3163streamlining the adoption-focused capabilities of Customer Success, ensuring that you as a technology or equipment provider are engaging with your customers with prescriptive time, event, and value-based interactions along the journey. But now, I’d like to discuss the processes directly associated with sales results, specifically, the role that Customer Success can play with renewing subscription revenues. ]]>Thu, 07 Dec 2017 23:32:53 GMT7de14dd1-7d69-477e-913d-33eafa2462e7Resource Management team is responsible for, briefly touching on the topic of demand/supply management. As my first blog post as TSIA’s new director of professional services research, I wanted to provide a closer look at what goes into demand/supply management, more specifically, capacity planning.]]>Wed, 06 Dec 2017 03:59:17 GMT0fdcc760-2ce6-426b-a158-cb9e1c31d028TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 30 Nov 2017 11:00:00 GMTa8549c57-b836-4448-b7c9-5dda5f22bd2bIn the first article of this series, I made the statement, “Selling technology is becoming a low-growth, low-margin endeavor,” and presented data to back up this sobering statement. In addition, we reviewed the fact that born-in-the-cloud computing companies are enjoying double-digit revenue growth, but they are struggling to be profitable.]]>Wed, 29 Nov 2017 02:39:51 GMT7609ab14-6898-4e31-81f2-98363c336318Check out this handy playlist we've put together for you featuring the keynotes from all three days of TSW. ]]>Wed, 22 Nov 2017 16:12:45 GMTc8616ec6-97e6-4349-89ad-810b0af811daTue, 21 Nov 2017 16:22:43 GMTfd572db7-1517-45ef-bf55-b7262879557dGetting your foot in the door of a prospective education services (ES) customer is often as simple as offering a free sample of the value you can bring to their organization. But, free offers shouldn’t just be given away without a strategy. While a free strategy is most commonly employed with new customers, free offers can be sprinkled throughout the customer lifecycle. In this post, I’m going to share some best practices to keep in mind when developing your free-to-fee strategy.
]]>Fri, 17 Nov 2017 19:06:53 GMTb8653a75-0a1e-4a20-94e9-aa45df667ee4The concept of “shifting left" is an interesting one. In the software world, it means bringing testing and user feedback into the development cycle as early as possible so that developers can produce, and bring to market, a product that is better designed and more aligned with their customers' needs.

In the support world, "shifting left" means something a bit different. It refers to pushing work down and to the left, and ultimately out to self-service when appropriate. In doing so, they can provide end-users with solutions quicker and close tickets faster.

By moving solutions closer to the point of first contact—and closer to the customer's first issue—support can reduce complexity, resolve cases faster, and create more delighted customers.

]]>Thu, 16 Nov 2017 22:19:08 GMTe3c1685d-3ce5-43cd-81e7-52b52462ab74Technology Services World conference in Las Vegas, I had about 20 formal 1:1 meetings with members, and many short conversations in hallways, after presentations, and in the EXPO. A couple of themes emerged, both a bit of a surprise, and I wanted to share what I heard at TSW in this blog post recapping some of the common themes.]]>Tue, 14 Nov 2017 16:38:18 GMTc252ea2c-6c3a-44c8-be08-d5441f463ac1Thu, 09 Nov 2017 17:14:43 GMT90109a6a-bdd5-47d0-9e0a-55611f673e25“Why Services is the Big IoT Opportunity for Hardware Manufacturers,” but what does that mean for executives who need to know how to approach the implications of the Internet of Things (IoT) from a high-level perspective? To provide this overview, we’ve created this white paper, “Executive’s Guide to Digital Transformation and Monetizing IoT,” designed specifically to help executives of traditional manufacturers make informed decisions for the good of their companies in the new age of IoT.]]>Thu, 02 Nov 2017 18:21:00 GMT4b2ed230-860e-44bf-8e49-7f15f69992efTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 31 Oct 2017 10:00:00 GMTa1a47a79-9bc9-4173-a0c8-630914e27a34STAR Awards are a way for these organizations to be publicly recognized by their peers as being among the best in the business. We’re proud to announce this year’s winners and highlight their achievements!]]>Thu, 26 Oct 2017 21:26:08 GMTdc696de0-d771-437a-bca6-6de248c49c26Technology Services World at the beautiful ARIA in Las Vegas. I just received the session counts for 70+ breakout sessions yesterday, and am here to report the top attended sessions. As I always say, attendees vote with their feet, so if you want to know which issues are top of mind with service executives, the top attended list is a great source of insight. ]]>Wed, 25 Oct 2017 21:30:36 GMTf0ed2f30-71b3-4f25-bf60-4e923c7fbd46th TSIA conference! Today was the opening day, and I was up early for our Partner Advisory Board meeting, which included a facilitated session by our new Consulting Alliance Partner, Method Garage, on the business of customer journey mapping. I’m very excited about this conference theme, The Art and Science of the Customer Journey, which is so relevant to our industry and really resonating with our members, across disciplines.]]>Mon, 23 Oct 2017 18:43:01 GMT8752aa5f-7722-48d4-830d-9af331f3e619The operating models of equipment manufacturers are in the midst of a huge transformation. The industry is rapidly moving from a pure product focus to a customer outcome-based focus. With this change, every equipment manufacturer will be faced with the hard truth that their customers are also changing the way they purchase. New customer expectations, new models, and new capabilities will put tremendous pressure on today’s field services organization to adapt, be relevant, and continue to deliver a key revenue stream for their company.

This transformation will impact every aspect of a company, including traditional service lines of business like Support, Professional, Education, and Field Services. These service organizations will need new capabilities to be relevant in the future while they continue to deliver today’s results. Let’s take a stroll along the customer journey of the future.

]]>Thu, 19 Oct 2017 16:23:35 GMT7dee3191-7547-4719-a0e9-94d26e352cd9Often, TSIA members will ask us what the difference is between a traditional consulting engagement and TSIA Strategic Services. While we are always excited to share the many benefits of TSIA Strategic Services, the best way to fully understand the difference is to ask someone who’s experienced both and offer their unbiased perspective. I had the pleasure of speaking with Byron McDuffee, VP of Global Strategy for CDK Global, who recently wrapped up an advisory engagement with us. Here is what he had to say about his experiences and how they compared to traditional consulting.
]]>Wed, 18 Oct 2017 16:30:50 GMTcc61a204-f3a4-491f-9f25-252bb0d6c17eThe act of selling technology has undergone a radical change. Purchases are no longer the large up-front investments they once were, but are instead made up of lower cost subscriptions and value-add services. As a result, the features and function of the technology are now less important when compared to the business outcome achieved by using the technology. In this new era of technology-as-a-service (XaaS), the ability to successfully deliver customer outcomes, keep customers on your platform, and get them to spend more money over time will be what determines your company’s profitability and success.

In order to thrive in this changing marketplace, TSIA believes that today’s technology providers need to shift their focus from selling more assets to growing customers successfully. To aid in this transition, TSIA has developed the supplier view of a customer engagement model called LAER (pronounced “layer”). While we have discussed this in blogs, TSW conferences, and the new Technology-as-a-Service Playbook, here are the basics of LAER explained and its impact to the customer-supplier relationship.

]]>Tue, 17 Oct 2017 21:05:02 GMT4bcfc303-9aea-4984-870a-6901174159e4Today’s customers have large expectations, which have actually changed significantly in the past few years. These new expectations are also forcing support organizations to rapidly adjust and transform how they deliver value to their customers.

Support organizations need to move away from the largely reactive mode of operation and become much more proactive and predictive. More than that, support needs to become real-time. They must be available at any moment, with customers having access to experts any time they may need. Everything in a modern support organization needs be interconnected, “always-on” support. It’s no wonder that today, so many are wrestling with developing timelines and strategies for the journey to create the new digital support experience that is being demanded.

]]>Thu, 12 Oct 2017 20:53:48 GMTc442b551-207e-40f7-9440-7633094a3fecthe first installment of my three-part series of articles about how the new subscription-based economy is affecting traditional technology companies, I talked about how product and service revenues are beginning to shrink across the industry. In this second installment, I'll be sharing what it means to embrace as-a-service offers in a tech business model and how that can lead to future profitability. ]]>Wed, 11 Oct 2017 22:13:15 GMT830de692-fb59-4b11-a7f9-1545ef1cc56fTue, 10 Oct 2017 23:35:20 GMT0ce2c34b-49d0-45f0-a0ac-72dcccb846c1At their core, all managed services have at least two things in common: first, they are subscription-based services rather than transactional services. Second, they focus on providing a business outcome to customers through the management of technology. This is often with measurable service-level objectives, rather than providing customers with a discrete product or service that would then become the customer’s responsibility to use to reach their outcome.

This is both true of standalone managed services (which can be sold after, or in conjunction with, a product sale) and subscription-based managed XaaS (in which product is included/embedded within the managed services contract, whether that’s an embedded product sale or a cloud-delivered model).

]]>Thu, 05 Oct 2017 18:17:03 GMT87b106e5-1568-44d7-87ed-3457cab9f73cThe Cloud. It's where cool tech ideas get funded by eager venture capitalists and mega fortunes are made when the next big thing goes viral. For all of the excitement and hype surrounding the Cloud, there are some sobering realities that tend to get swept under the rug: namely the fact that, on the whole, the cloud business model is not a profitable one. Surprised?

Yes, cloud companies (such as software-as-a-service and technology-as-a-service, just to name a few) are all the rage, and rightly so, for they are the future of tech. They regularly enjoy double- or triple-digit growth rates and garner enviable media coverage and razzle-dazzle headlines. But the mostly unspoken truth is that they are underpinned by unproven financial fundamentals that, frankly, wouldn't be allowed to persist in any other industry.

]]>Wed, 04 Oct 2017 18:28:16 GMT361093d7-4a7c-47a3-8934-d8c945194f2dTo introduce myself, my name is Jeff Connolly and I am the new senior director of managed services research for TSIA. I’ve worked in managed services for most of my career—in very large technology companies, as well as a very small one—always with a focus on building new technology services in a rapidly changing environment.

When I first started working in tech (telecom) in the late 90s, I caught the managed services fever on the growth potential in managed services. I saw all the Gartner and Forrester hockey stick charts on how huge the segment was going to be and how fast it was going to grow. “Hot crackers!” I thought. “I’ve landed in the sweet spot, fresh out of business school!”

While I didn’t know many things then, I have learned some important lessons along the way, not the least of which is to not drink the Kool-Aid on market growth forecasts. I’ve also learned some very important lessons about managed services specifically, and as my first blog post at TSIA, I thought I’d start with one of the broadest, most over-arching takeaways I’ve had, which is that managed services is an orchestra.

I always think the sign of a great book is when you read it, you can hear the author’s voice, and that is absolutely the case with Into the Diamond Mine, filled not only with great insights, but also a healthy dose of humor and real-world examples to drive the points home. In this blog post I’d like to highlight some of my favorite parts of the book.

]]>Thu, 28 Sep 2017 16:52:23 GMTaf056ad0-e00b-4215-bafc-97a9ba6498cfHave you heard the expression “two sides of the same coin”? It means that there are different ways of looking at or dealing with the same situation. In TSIA’s Service Revenue Generationline of research, we dig deep into the health of recurring service revenue, both from the perspective of the internal operational journey and from the external customer journey. Each point of view offers gateways and insights into how customers connect value to the service offerings that are developed, marketed, sold, and renewed. But as models shift from on-premise to XaaS, or from hardware only to hardware and software, these gateways have become more complex.
]]>Wed, 27 Sep 2017 19:58:34 GMT3c45054a-1d40-4f6b-9d29-ee384a90f4daAccording to your customers, support just got personal. In Salesforce’s 2017 State of Service Report, 69% of consumers and 82% of business buyers now expect support to be personalized to them. That doesn’t sound unreasonable until it’s stacked upon their additional desires to receive faster resolutions, be routed to the right agents, and be recognized across a multiplicity of channels.

Where can support executives turn for help shouldering the growing weight of modern customer expectations? To the power of video.

]]>Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:20:12 GMT8a2c4de8-27a3-499f-b579-c4acddbaa234Fri, 22 Sep 2017 20:31:20 GMTb95cc713-d6de-42a2-9d2b-d06a389fcbbd"The Digital Transformation Journey" series.]]>Thu, 21 Sep 2017 23:43:54 GMTbc6248ae-7f52-44d2-adbf-7e264728f1cfTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 20 Sep 2017 10:00:00 GMT3ad9234f-d904-4cc3-ba59-8ddfa27360efTechnology Services World conference, we used the crowdsourcing approach to select a theme. We gathered input from members and asked our various advisory boards for feedback on the suggestions, arriving at what I think is truly a “big tent” topic: The Art and Science of the Customer Journey. Regardless of where you fit in the customer lifecycle—sales, implementation, post-sales support, field service, customer success, expand selling, etc.—improving and accelerating the customer journey is a critical component of your job.]]>Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:17:38 GMTecd351fd-99fc-4561-b0c6-2f0e3c2eb08eWe’re excited about our upcoming Technology Services World conference this fall in Las Vegas. This year’s theme is the Art and Science of the Customer Journey, and within my area of research, customer success, many attendees will realize this theme is definitely in our wheelhouse.

As part of the customer journey, we usually see two bigger phases of customer success maturity. The first is when we observe a group of professionals working across a company on projects and initiatives that improve the customer’s experience, which we refer to as the “thematic” view of customer success. The second is an organization that has one or more of three common charters of customer success: adoption, retention, and expansion. Regardless of maturity of your customer success and customer experience initiatives, being able to improve your customer’s experience should be a top priority for these teams.

]]>Fri, 15 Sep 2017 22:12:50 GMT43733a10-2d5f-425c-bb9d-6d89b08f04c6this ebook can be your reference to all things customer success. ]]>Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:50:18 GMTb919c4aa-87c6-4595-9e87-bb92eb33e81cHow far the industry has come in the last 5-10 years! At the beginning of this transformation nearly a decade ago, virtually all technology professional services organizations were perfectly content to play a “Level 2” role. That is, they had capabilities and offers that were almost exclusively focused on getting customers up and running on the core technology product.

Of course, that’s still an important function of professional services (PS) for any tech company. But nowadays, we’re getting a lot more questions indicating that PS is rapidly being pulled and pushed into being more of a Level 3/Level 4 engine, that is to say, a capability that directly helps customer achieve business outcomes.

]]>Tue, 12 Sep 2017 22:37:16 GMT6038a3fd-20fc-4ab4-8c9e-24fd3c22b3ceCustomer journey maps are typically the result of a business planning exercise to better understand B2C customer experience sequences. With journey maps in hand, suppliers can then purposefully control and optimize the interactions to improve supplier outcomes in typically narrow circumstances.

However, the customer journey for a large technology buyer is complicated and dynamic. In this post, I’m going to explain that journey and how you can deliver a dynamic and more customized approach to customer journey mapping, an approach I like to refer to as “appifying,” with the help of analytics.

]]>Sat, 09 Sep 2017 01:49:21 GMT31e264c0-c5f2-4553-879b-883be1cee2e7the last post in "The Digital Transformation Journey" series. But fortunately, with so many hardware, software, industrial and medical equipment suppliers playing today in the subscription business model, some best practices are emerging. ]]>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 02:21:58 GMT3b2babaa-34b4-4f97-b1d4-cbcc510757a7It’s no secret that great customer service is growing harder and harder to deliver. Customer expectations are rising and there is a lot of pressure for support organizations to deliver more with less. Surveyed IT support organizations report that ticket volumes are up 57% over the past year, and yet headcount has remained flat. In addition to having more tickets, the issues they are working on are becoming increasingly more complex as customers demand support across more devices.

The “do more with less” challenge can feel like an uphill battle for most support organizations, but there are ways to maximize efficiency. It’s all about working smarter and not harder. In this post, I’ll be sharing some steps you can take to get started in building a smarter customer support organization.

]]>Wed, 06 Sep 2017 02:38:58 GMT48198529-dd3d-4072-87d2-03ca19956a47Fri, 01 Sep 2017 18:38:49 GMT480586d2-19c9-46b4-99f0-5ef794259767Tue, 29 Aug 2017 18:53:51 GMTc70a19fd-f6c9-4b7a-8591-22f35e2572adTSIA asks our membership about different metrics and practices through various inquiries, surveys, and benchmarks. One statistic that has surprised us is the number of Customer Success organizations that use a dedicated customer success platform. According to our data, we found that 67% of Customer Success organizations do not use a dedicated customer success platform.

While the data is consistent, we continue to be amazed. Between the two of us, we have direct experience with customer success platforms, and remain connected with new technologies that continue to hit the marketplace. We have also observed how other Customer Success organizations benefit from this kind of technology with efficient results. But none of the oft-quoted benefits have carried over to moving the needle on whether Customer Success organizations will purchase dedicated tools or applications for their teams.

]]>Thu, 24 Aug 2017 17:32:16 GMTd8aa9b81-ef83-4635-8c2e-7781d6c5138cTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:00:00 GMTc3658797-c4d4-452e-8aab-e6730c3aed76Fri, 18 Aug 2017 02:46:29 GMTc0bab5f5-a2e0-4840-a540-df90de2f1623our Professional Services membership community, which have all been various forms of the same question: “Is there any data showing the business benefits and impact a dedicated Services Sales team has on key professional services metrics?” In a related follow-up question, these members also ask for data points and content that they can use to help justify investing in a dedicated sales resource for professional services. With so many similar questions routinely cropping up from professional services, just what’s going on in the industry to prompt this need?]]>Wed, 16 Aug 2017 19:04:09 GMTfca2f33f-60a3-4c11-8ca2-17840752a1daAt most technology companies, Services teams interact with customers at a rate of 5-15 times as often as their Sales counterparts. TSIA member companies are utilizing expand selling best practices to leverage these interactions to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in qualified upsell and cross-sell opportunities with their existing customers.

This past spring, TSIA launched an in-depth survey on the practice of generating leads through Services touchpoints. It was the first study to go into depth around the practices and key metrics that are most tightly connected with success in this effort. While the specific findings of the survey are only available to TSIA members, I’d like to share one of the more interesting pieces of information that came to light from the survey data. We discovered how remarkably low-cost these Services-generated leads are. In the hopes of helping companies like yours understand what an incredible opportunity there is to be had in this area, we’re making this cost-of-lead data public.

]]>Tue, 15 Aug 2017 19:11:25 GMT0daf1323-ccb7-40ec-9015-551882dcdb5f"Putting Customer Experience at the Heart of Next-Generation Operating Models," they say, “The benefits of improved customer experience can be fleeting unless changes to supporting back-end operations are made as well.” The article also goes on to state, “Delivering a great customer experience calls for disciplined execution and consistent service delivery.”]]>Thu, 10 Aug 2017 20:18:35 GMT749e1e50-7e27-4402-9f70-289886390582“Navigating the World of Digital Transformation” is not the kind of story that is all good news. There are real challenges that suppliers face in deciding to head in this direction. Management needs to deftly navigate these obstacles, or else they may not be around long enough to reach their objective of a profitable, high-growth, recurring revenue business.]]>Tue, 08 Aug 2017 20:24:18 GMT5e08b906-12dd-456e-a123-e5588aee0514TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional research areas TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Mon, 31 Jul 2017 10:00:00 GMTf590fa95-82d3-412c-98be-319a3eec318eFri, 28 Jul 2017 20:32:54 GMT676be51d-666b-4d99-8744-ace54a55ba45Services now make up more than half of the total yearly revenue for technology companies, and managed services are a critical component of that growth trend. It’s time for CEOs to start leveraging managed services to quickly grow their top-line revenue, but many don’t yet know the best way to structure their managed services organization in a way that will yield the best performance. This managed services infographic outlines the most effective ways to build out crucial functions in managed services through strong sales, delivery, and client management.
]]>Tue, 25 Jul 2017 17:33:11 GMTb5854721-095e-4086-863f-a6e2840398b5For many product companies, it can seem difficult at first to get CFOs to see the value in professional services (PS). The simple answer to addressing this challenge is to focus your PS business on profit margin growth. Only when margins are great, should you focus on revenue growth.

As a PS executive in a product company, you probably are all too familiar with this reality. Valuation multiples for PS revenues are 1x to 2x compared to 8x to 10x for product revenues. So, CFOs are not interested in PS revenue growth, but what matters to them is earnings contribution of PS business. The current trend of optimizing PS business through headcount reduction and expansion of partner-led implementations is a direct result of CFOs desire to increase earnings contribution of PS business.

]]>Thu, 20 Jul 2017 20:50:06 GMT797d26d9-a89a-4c5f-8f78-66ce4f6ffbb4Lately I have been blogging about why vendors in high tech, industrial automation, medical equipment and other market sectors are moving rapidly toward subscription-based offers. In the first two blogs of this series based on my infographic,“Navigating the World of Digital Transformation,” I focused on the perspective of the end customer: what they like and what they don’t like about subscriptions. It’s clear from today’s market trends that many customers find compelling reasons to consume technology as a subscription-based service. Sales are growing at a much faster rate than for traditional CapEx offers.

But is this a better model for the vendors? In the next two posts, I will explore this question in more detail starting with the good news about why recurring revenues are such a hot topic in many board rooms.

]]>Tue, 18 Jul 2017 16:03:47 GMT9619f2f9-354f-472c-9f60-04c17b33c0d4Technology Services World conference in Las Vegas. To introduce this theme, the rest of the TSIA research team and I will be sharing our thoughts on how it relates to our specific area of research, which in my case is expand selling. In this entry, I’ll be sharing a look at the journey from lead to closed deal for new opportunities with existing customers, how this process is different than it is for new customers, and why Services touchpoints have to be accounted for in the process.]]>Fri, 14 Jul 2017 23:26:30 GMT8b7e9b8b-4382-4307-840d-5bc00db607dfWhile the healthcare technology industry is still relatively strong, we’re seeing many of the same trends crop up that have drastically impacted other industries, mainly enterprise IT and industrial equipment. It all starts with the slowing down of CapEx revenue as new product feature innovations take a backseat to value realization. Suddenly, the business model that was built on high growth rates and high profitability needs to adapt to be in the business of delivering outcomes, not just products and services.

However, with the rise of economic buyers and value-based care in the healthcare industry, there’s an opportunity to reverse these trends by creating new service offers. With that in mind, here are the top business challenges impacting the healthcare technology industry and the 5 key themes TSIA has observed during regular conversations with our membership community.

]]>Thu, 13 Jul 2017 20:06:42 GMTec7121c9-bfc1-48fd-97f2-900bca873e78View this SlideShare to get 3 highlights from all 8 of these reports, which cover our research areas of Customer Success, Education Services, Expand Selling, Field Services, Managed Services, Professional Services, Service Revenue Generation, and Support Services.]]>Tue, 11 Jul 2017 23:49:07 GMTcfe949c5-38ee-47d4-b102-842595afd64aTSIA public webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here's a recap of this summer’s webinars in case you missed them! ]]>Fri, 07 Jul 2017 00:17:37 GMT006de89d-6144-41ac-9c2c-250d3ba1a6b6Increasingly, technology products that are merely “good enough” are permeating the market. Clients are not looking for perfection and accept the limitations of a lower-cost product. Software allows these good enough products to be enhanced over time, with new features being delivered through software updates that can make a product more valuable.

After researching several large hardware providers, we discovered that a large percentage of their monthly sales were either fulfillment or products, while only a small percentage of their monthly sales were high-margin solutions that included high-value services. Every manufacturer would like to improve their percentage of high-margin products and services, so, why don’t Sales teams sell more high-value solutions to solve the business problems of their customers?

]]>Wed, 05 Jul 2017 17:47:54 GMT97e9e666-dced-4c92-9f68-c9c3da5d2880“Navigating the World of Digital Transformation,” I outlined 6 key steps to thriving in today’s rapidly changing tech market. In my first blog of this series, I covered the many attractive aspects to customers of consuming enterprise technology on an “as-a-service” (subscription) basis. Today, I’m going to talk about the flip side of the coin—why some customers might object to the concept.]]>Fri, 30 Jun 2017 03:30:19 GMTcd2a9547-735f-4d06-8248-3a28d325a826Wed, 28 Jun 2017 16:48:47 GMT69aa4596-a017-407c-8710-773d17d51ac2a free virtual summit about using social support technology and strategies to improve your customer experience, hosted by TSIA and our partners, Lithium Technologies and Miller Heiman Group. During this 3-hour event, you’ll learn how to successfully leverage social technology to improve your support and the customer experience.]]>Tue, 27 Jun 2017 17:53:42 GMT9e368b05-fb93-48ef-ac2b-140e5aa0faaaTSIA’s Managed Services discipline at the tail end of 2012, I’ve received a lot of questions both from members and non-members about the definition of managed services. I figured that it was worth addressing these questions in a blog post, specifically, what is managed services, how TSIA defines both the concept and considers examples of managed services, what we’re seeing in the industry, and explain the different types of managed services offers.

In TSIA's definition, managed services is the practice of outsourcing day-to-day technology management responsibilities to a third party as a strategic method for improving operations and accelerating a return on their technology investment, but the truth is, “managed services” is an umbrella term for a variety of different kinds of offers.]]>Thu, 22 Jun 2017 17:19:43 GMTcf5dfe2d-3361-4d6f-b9d4-1cc37b7f5762Tue, 20 Jun 2017 15:38:28 GMTb64e0226-a24f-4b4d-a1f2-b7510c82c920Customer Success Maturity Model, which allows companies to see where they stand against their peers and spot potential ways to improve as they move through the stages of their organizational maturity. ]]>Tue, 13 Jun 2017 15:54:09 GMTd2ab1fb8-9244-451d-ad1f-93d2d8bc0357Every once in a while, a perfect storm hits a market. Usually it’s when a new trend or concept appeals simultaneously to both customers and suppliers. When that serendipity strikes, even long-standing models are forever transformed. That is what’s going on today in tech sectors, from IT, to industrial equipment, to transportation, to healthcare. Subscription-based offers are eating their old transaction-based siblings at a breathtaking rate.

In my infographic, “Navigating the Digital Transformation Journey,” I outlined 6 key steps to thriving in this changing market. Today, I’m going to talk about the most fundamental underpinning of the new subscription economy and the first step on this journey, “Customer Use Cases,” or in other words, why customers love it!

]]>Tue, 06 Jun 2017 03:38:42 GMT8a26d185-f86b-47f0-b958-5437b4467e0bwatching the videos online. Now you can share key takeaways with your team and apply what you’ve learned about organizational convergence to your operation. We’ve put together a handy playlist of these energetic and informative sessions so you can relive the energy from TSW whenever and wherever you want.]]>Fri, 02 Jun 2017 16:01:22 GMT8eb8dc15-d3cf-4a12-b3a8-6cfbd5dc5191Thu, 01 Jun 2017 16:55:04 GMTc39f9ba9-9fd9-4a87-9746-efa40df2c855TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 31 May 2017 10:00:00 GMT183f8996-8d7a-4dca-94d6-d53290afa562Tue, 30 May 2017 18:03:11 GMT7451d328-00ab-453a-a8f4-b0b9a74371baThe technology industry has been creating service offers for decades. These service offers have helped customers stand up technology and make it available for use. At TSIA, we call this the "technology availability" value proposition.

However, customers want more. They don’t just want the technology to be available, they want technology providers to accelerate their ability to unlock value. In particular, customers want us to help them achieve their desired business outcomes around:

revenue growth

cost optimization

regulatory compliance/risk management

This shift towards catalyzing customer outcomes is represented below in a framework from the book B4B, written by J.B. Wood and Thomas Lah.

]]>Thu, 25 May 2017 19:42:09 GMTf26989b6-013d-4fb4-941d-f326f8477b4fThe Terror Facing Tech," I discuss how both the product revenues and even service revenues for many well-established traditional technology suppliers are beginning to shrink. In response, they’re making the pivot toward the new as-a-service business models, yet are struggling to achieve profitability. So, what can they do to bridge this gap? Here is an excerpt of the article, which you can read in full online on Business View Magazine's site.]]>Tue, 23 May 2017 18:07:39 GMT4508bf64-5f5e-47b9-8085-6d388c838a70TSIA has closely tracked the product and service revenue as well as the profit trends of 50 of the largest technology solutions providers in the world through our Technology & Services 50 index. This valuable information, which we aggregate from publicly reported data from a diverse list of hardware, software, and pure service companies, allows us to get an accurate view of the performance and overall state of the industry. This quarter, we’ve observed some key trends that are clearly pointing to an increasing reliance on both service revenues and profits to sustain the health and growth of most technology product companies. This SlideShare highlights 3 of these trends that can help you stay on the right path to profitable growth.]]>Thu, 18 May 2017 16:06:26 GMT5b6d282c-3182-4625-8d35-20070d9b4c78rd TSIA conference over the last 11 years. It was a very busy 3 days for me, with a keynote, 6 presentations, 15 1:1 meetings, and countless conversations in hallways and in the TSW | EXPO. Now that I've had some time to process all that I heard, I wanted to write up some of the principle themes and/or trends that popped up again and again.]]>Tue, 16 May 2017 18:14:11 GMT10fd2ba5-27ac-4876-ac6b-4313e5101651TSIA’s Strategic Services offerings were designed to give our members the hands-on, customized assistance they need to meet their business objectives, our Strategic Certifications programs put these accomplishments to the test, and enable companies to receive recognition for being the best in the industry. We’re thrilled to announce that TSIA member company and cloud software provider, Intermedia, has recently gone through several of these rigorous certification processes and received both the TSIA Rated Outstanding and J.D. Power Certified Assisted Technical Support certifications. I spoke with Connie Adcock, VP of Client Services at Intermedia to learn about their experiences with the certification process, hear how they’ve benefitted from these programs, and to also see if she had any advice for others who are considering getting certified. Here’s what she had to say!]]>Thu, 11 May 2017 16:31:31 GMTeb8642aa-7422-428c-8169-1a2dc1b9be8fIn an earlier blog post of mine, we explored the concept of Relationship Equity, which is the trust that Services Delivery teams have engendered with their clients that allows them to ask the questions that salespeople can’t. They are able to uncover problems, challenges, and opportunities that customers would generally withhold from a salesperson, or even their account manager. Customers tend to believe that Services people are there to help, not separate them from their money.

If companies can merely document and act upon the knowledge gained by their Services teams, they can tap into a new wellspring of potential upsell and cross-sell opportunities, at an extremely low cost. After all, these Services interactions are happening anyway, so there’s no money out of pocket being spent to acquire these leads. Today, I’d like to expand upon that post by exploring a second concept called “Touchpoint Calculus.”

]]>Tue, 09 May 2017 21:31:59 GMT13b4c4c0-1def-4341-a932-fc2f4930f5bbToday is the final day of Technology Services World, and so far this has been a fantastic event. Today we had several more rounds of breakout sessions and panel discussions before the closing lunch keynote. I just received the session counts for yesterday, which had sessions running from 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM, plus cocktails in the TSW | EXPO. I did a quick count and we had 60 separate sessions yesterday—that’s a lot of content!

With so many topics to pick from, I always like to report on what the top attended sessions were for the day. Clearly, attendees vote with their feet on the topics that interest them, so these top 5 sessions are a great barometer of trends and interest areas of technology firms.

]]>Wed, 03 May 2017 18:20:51 GMT47e531c4-0f43-47c5-9919-56513aa0add4Technology Services World—to enjoy the breeze. Here’s a recap of what went down yesterday. ]]>Tue, 02 May 2017 18:24:41 GMT160e33f1-3d07-49cd-bab4-4bb577306762rd TSIA conference, Technology Services World, in beautiful San Diego. I have a busy day planned, starting with my Partner Advisory Board meeting at 7 AM, my keynote at 11:30 AM, and my Power Hour session at 4 PM. Before things get too crazy, I wanted to write up some of themes I’m talking about this week which hopefully will resonate with you.]]>Mon, 01 May 2017 18:29:05 GMTe235f66a-bd28-4ed4-b363-0bd32da27f52Most technology suppliers don’t think about delivering business outcomes to their customers. For years, the technology industry has delivered products and services to enable the customer to own their outcome. The book B4B profiles how the buyers of technology are changing and the industry-wide impact of new business models that are emerging as a result. No longer is the CIO/VP of IT the only decision maker for technology. Increasingly, line of business executives are involved in the selection and purchase of new solutions.

They want their technology to deliver a business outcome, and these buyers have different measures (KPIs), industry vertical expertise, and technology insights gained from the Internet. These new buyers are more confident in their own ability to make decisions and are no longer completely reliant on suppliers to point them to the right solution. So, what can suppliers do to meet the needs of this new type of buyer and help them achieve the outcomes they’re looking for?

]]>Fri, 28 Apr 2017 18:33:09 GMT55283401-a520-4fbf-bf41-20f92532e6bfConvergence, what does it mean? In the literal sense, convergence is when two, or more, things come together and unite in a common interest or focus. Why are service lines and other internal organizations considering convergence, and why now? The short answer is: recurring revenue models (think subscriptions). Recurring revenue models require companies to think differently than they have in the past, with particular focus on driving product adoption, subscription renewal rates, and expansion of the company footprint in each account.

This shift of focus requires organizations that have functioned independently in the past to come together to ensure the success of the customer. A step in the convergence direction begins with partnership, and there are three organizations with whom education services should consider partnering: customer success, professional services and support services.

]]>Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:34:43 GMTa7b0acad-7c9f-4aef-ab07-8cc6c7703004With the new generation of business models focusing more on recurring revenue, particularly subscription-based cloud offers, many technology suppliers are finding themselves needing to change certain aspects of their businesses and how they function.
]]>Wed, 26 Apr 2017 15:32:17 GMT9a83706c-4c72-4e8f-9737-690efdaa8a5cThis is an exciting time for services providers. As established by the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) in the ground-breaking book B4B, there is major transformation taking place: providers are evolving from simply delivering products and implementing software to delivering business outcomes. This transformation is necessary and, moreover, exciting, as it brings tremendous new opportunities. However, it is also a very challenging time.

At Mavenlink, we are working with hundreds of successful professional services organizations to tackle this transformation head on, and I can confirm it’s not easy. I am also seeing our own services offerings increase in the areas of consulting services and adoption services. This trend is been putting enormous amounts of pressure on traditional operating models, and as the complexity of delivering services continues to accelerate, so do the complexities surrounding resource management. Organizations must adapt to new services models, or risk getting left behind.

]]>Tue, 25 Apr 2017 17:14:12 GMT5dd713b7-19e4-4111-8286-a55a221a3322Organizing for Recurring Revenues.” Take a look at this SlideShare for a preview of what I’ll be covering.]]>Fri, 21 Apr 2017 17:39:50 GMT23a48d44-1487-47c8-9fdb-78a1f101a2a3TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 20 Apr 2017 10:00:00 GMTb7a22bac-4d8d-43cc-8c8f-e455a6b63024Wed, 19 Apr 2017 19:09:35 GMT04f65e23-7a5b-43f1-8492-8d9d00ad1411Exclusively available to TSIA members, TSIA Strategic Services can help you achieve your desired business outcomes even faster by directly engaging our team of research experts.
]]>Tue, 18 Apr 2017 22:34:29 GMT26ccca6d-5b56-4d29-915b-04a0842005baWed, 12 Apr 2017 10:00:00 GMTfa877fc6-f1bd-4593-bd16-48d6860d2ff2When we talk about “organizational convergence,” we’re referring to the blending of traditional service lines. Encouraging better collaboration between functions within your company can have many benefits, including increased recurring revenues, a more streamlined service offer portfolio, improved resource utilization, and more!

In this infographic, you’ll get a glimpse at three tactics for breaking down silos within your organization and achieving successful organizational convergence.

]]>Thu, 06 Apr 2017 18:42:54 GMTf91ed46f-0e4c-4ee4-950d-96b47a3939d0Yet for many, achieving it remains elusive. As companies walk the path toward creating a profitable cloud-based business—or transitioning from a product-based to a service-based business—many challenges exist in this still-emerging market. And those challenges are amplified when operating through an indirect channel sales model.]]>Tue, 04 Apr 2017 18:47:46 GMTfa643b5a-accd-4e1a-bc21-d0302e68b788The rate of change and disruption in technology has quickly caused a blurring of the line between products and services. Where does the product stop and the service of the product start? Customers honestly don’t care, they just want a better customer experience and a lower effort to achieving their goals with their purchase.

The long-standing silos between support organizations and other business units (consulting, engineering, field services, education services, sales, etc.) are one of the major inhibitors to support organizations being able to provide the type of experience their customers expect. Add to that the increased focus on support executives to lower cost and improve profits and you have a perfect storm.

Today, many organizations continue to function in the more traditional organizational structures with each service line being separate and distinct. Every business unit has a specific function and focuses solely on performing that function. However, changing customer expectations are forcing a review of our internal structures.

]]>Fri, 31 Mar 2017 21:50:49 GMT76cce048-5516-4955-9ac0-b283b86c6814TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Thu, 30 Mar 2017 10:00:00 GMT959cfa92-bcdb-472e-bc93-d9b7622b3d41At TSIA, we are dedicated to helping technology and services organizations of all sizes stay on top of the latest best practices for growing and advancing their businesses. Each year, our research team publishes their "State of" reports on developing trends affecting their respective areas of research to serve as a guide for achieving success in the coming year and beyond. View this SlideShare to get 3 highlights from 8 "State of" reports covering all areas of tech so you can stay on top of industry forecasts you might have missed.
]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:51:51 GMT04afa86c-2d96-4f51-ab31-444f92c86d8dB4B, it mainly focused on how it occurs between the technology supplier and customer. The basic premise of the data handshake is that in order for your company to provide data-driven, value-add services to your customers, you need their data. They give you some of their data, and in return, you give them enriched data insights. Depending on the vertical and geographical region, the handshake might be chock full of rich user-level information, or it might be mitigated to metadata and aggregated information. Either way, the supplier had to provide a compelling value proposition to gain the trust of its customers, and then deliver. ]]>Thu, 23 Mar 2017 15:25:15 GMT5e1e43e5-b163-45a2-abc8-41f0bb88cb18TSIA STAR Awards are the best way to show the world the amazing things your company is doing, both as an organization and for the benefit of your customers. We’re excited to announce that the nomination period for the 2017 STAR Awards is now open! If you’re a current TSIA member, you’re invited to send in a nomination for your company in any of this year's categories for a chance to win one of the highest honors in the technology and services industry. Here’s everything you need to know about the awards and how to apply.]]>Tue, 21 Mar 2017 20:41:40 GMTbfa6e5f0-f5a3-4ee1-93b4-075fef2092a2Check out this SlideShare to identify 3 common renewal friction points and the capabilities you'll need to keep your renewals moving forward as planned.]]>Fri, 17 Mar 2017 17:50:08 GMTd052834b-324c-4d51-ac5a-70fee478c162multi-part blog series on organizational convergence, TSIA’s Phil Nanus and others have written extensively about the convergence of sales and services in an XaaS world. For a great primer on how these lines are blurring, be sure to read his blog post or Chapter 7 of the Technology-as-a-Service Playbook. A much less talked about topic, however, is the convergence of marketing and services, and their potential to work together to drive cost-effective leads and revenue from existing customers.]]>Thu, 16 Mar 2017 15:40:52 GMTa32351d2-5331-4ee9-ad32-37cd89b30676Everyone wants to grow their services revenue, and for hardware manufacturers that have traditionally been product-focused, this might seem like a big challenge to overcome. However, hardware manufacturers that have made the transition to the service engine business model have been able to accomplish this goal with remarkable success.
]]>Wed, 15 Mar 2017 03:29:50 GMT238b780a-d067-4b2c-95d0-9e7e8f618323Convergence, a term meaning "to come together," is a common theme that has impacted various service lines within the technology industry, and customer success is no exception. As more technology suppliers pivot towards new XaaS offerings, they are finding themselves in a constant cycle to deliver against the promise of their technology solution, which is how we define customer success. In their efforts to ensure that their customers achieve specific business outcomes, these organizations are seeing traditional services capabilities and organizational boundaries beginning to blur, or "converge." At TSIA, we've observed three areas within today's organizations that are seeing the most convergence with customer success: sales costs, service portfolios, and service organization structures.]]>Thu, 09 Mar 2017 18:46:23 GMTc62fad1b-b763-457c-830c-0cecd2b943f9Tue, 07 Mar 2017 21:20:01 GMTd04fdee2-3f42-48a1-8f6e-08b45551f9cfKnowledge management used to be a topic just for customer support. Specifically, it was about how to capture resolution information for every problem solved, so that the next time it occurred, no one had to waste time researching the problem and resolution all over again. Today, there are several drivers that are forcing companies to realize that knowledge management isn't just for support, but is a company-wide initiative with enough ROI for everybody, from support, to professional services, managed services, development, product management, and more.]]>Tue, 28 Feb 2017 20:36:34 GMTa2d075e5-c615-4f35-ac84-7d8afd28c620TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:00:00 GMTf7c9d5ab-0e84-43b3-ad91-a90e725d8056Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription Business, can play a major role in the profitable transition to a XaaS business model. More and more cloud companies are recognizing the importance of managed services, but are also finding that managed services requires measurement on a variety of growth metrics in order to fully understand its impact. In this post, I'm going to share which metrics your managed services business can use to track growth so you can be sure to put the right practices in place that will significantly influence your company's success in achieving profitable growth.]]>Wed, 15 Feb 2017 18:31:41 GMTd2faf9b2-38fb-4036-8b3d-6759a212d433exactly how profitable these offers will be for technology companies remains to be seen. As part of Mediaplanet's Cloud Solutions campaign that unites like-minded industry leaders to highlight the technologies, people, and processes that are helping to empower, as well as seamlessly connect organizations across the globe, I contributed an article on behalf of TSIA exploring what it takes to be profitable in the Cloud. Here's an excerpt of the article I wrote which was published in both the San Francisco Chronicle and online.]]>Tue, 14 Feb 2017 16:55:13 GMTd548b812-b4ca-4810-89b7-9acd25a622eccustomer success." In this post, I'm going to go over some of the basics of this concept by answering some of the more common questions around customer success, as well as provide additional resources that you and your organization can use to see how customer success fits into your daily operation.]]>Fri, 10 Feb 2017 18:07:14 GMT1613f9a3-5f72-445d-ae74-da068e5fc967This article was originally published on the Verint blog on 2/1/2017

Today's customer is smart, engaged, connected and informed. To keep pace with this new breed of customer, organizations must also become smarter and more connected. Your employees are the gateway to your customers, and the best way to help ensure they stay satisfied and loyal is to empower your employees with the tools and tactics to provide superior service. Organizations seeking to provide intelligent customer service are able provide this level of service throughout the customer journey, even as it spans multiple channels.

]]>Thu, 09 Feb 2017 11:00:00 GMT2fe211ba-10ba-48c0-9cb3-0f44d8d98048the concept of expand selling to TSIA member companies, the question is asked, “Why can't sales just do this for themselves? After all, upselling and cross-selling are, in fact, selling, and selling is what salespeople do.” Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Regardless of how hesitant they might be to join the revenue-generation party, expand selling initiatives have to be driven by the service delivery teams. In this post, I'll be digging deeper into why this is, beginning with the concept of “relationship equity”. ]]>Thu, 02 Feb 2017 21:03:37 GMT03380c9e-2258-4f03-9f5e-c7e59cad94a4TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Mon, 30 Jan 2017 17:16:00 GMTab3fe878-b92f-4802-b28b-e43ac41326f0analyzing how tech companies organize their professional services (PS) capabilities. Most of those 10 years have been about the story of the increasing organizational maturation and sophistication of PS, that is to say, we have watched PS "grow up." We have seen it morph from a loosely conceived, poorly funded collection of smart people inventing, reinventing, and delivering technology services to customers, into something that, in the vast majority of cases, has all of the artifices and trappings of fully formed organizational entity. But, what does this mean, exactly?]]>Wed, 25 Jan 2017 11:00:00 GMT252aafa9-b773-4876-bd62-d04b5d9713e0If you have hardware at a customer location, you're always going to need on-site service, and reducing this cost will continue to be an ongoing priority for every field services organization. Watch this short animation to learn 5 key performance indicators you can use to reduce on-site support costs through better optimization of your processes and more efficient use of your available workforce.
]]>Wed, 25 Jan 2017 05:01:02 GMTcb032ead-afb5-46f8-b051-df40b5058099In the technology industry, Customer Success Management is a growing practice, alongside the increase in popularity of SaaS (software-as-a-service) as a software licensing and delivery model. As a result, the traditional customer-vendor relationship, which now mostly applies to on-premise solutions, has changed dramatically. In many ways, Customer Success has become synonymous to SaaS. But what about on-premise clients? To try and assess the answer to this question, I interviewed Noy Bar, Americas Region Customer Success Manager at HP Enterprise and Anna Connell, Sr. Director of Global Subscription Sales at Proofpoint. In this blog, I share their observations on the differences between Customer Success programs for SaaS and those for on-premise, derived from their professional experience over the past few years.

The reality is that most on-premise companies don’t yet offer a Customer Success program. Those who do, customize the program to the different needs, behaviors and expectations of on-premise clients. This raises a couple questions: how different is the approach to Customer Success between the two licensing models, and how does this difference affect the role of the Customer Success team?

]]>Wed, 18 Jan 2017 22:25:56 GMTd0b9640f-444c-4fb3-9dfd-de9752e79738Historically when we've thought of convergence in the tech industry, we thought of a variety of technologies merging together, such as voice and data or storage and networking. Hyper-convergence infrastructure is a term used to encompass storage, computing, and virtualization. Stand aside pings and packets, there's a new type of convergence out there. We're talking about service convergence, and it's something we've identified at TSIA as a major market trend.
]]>Tue, 17 Jan 2017 19:29:14 GMT6a308230-16c9-46b6-8a7d-764dd8281f85Our industry has been debating the pros and cons of converging service organizations for years. And for good reason—there are so many obvious and truly meaningful benefits that can be realized by breaking down the silos:

A more streamlined service offer portfolio

Improved resource utilization

Elimination of redundancies in skills and capabilities

Improved economics achieved through cost optimization

Yet to date, there has been little more than lip service paid to the idea of collapsing and blending service organizations and capabilities. Understandably so, as there are careers and jobs at stake, not to mention just how daunting a task it is to dismantle and reassemble longstanding and highly stable structures and processes.

]]>Thu, 12 Jan 2017 21:49:51 GMT2fa8698d-3015-491c-a7b9-1ac07115996eWith the unprecedented planned spending for customer self-service portals, companies are looking for help on where to start. Over the last year, TSIA's VP of Support Services Research, Judith Platz, and I have had the opportunity to work with multiple TSIA members on evaluating their current self-service programs, tools and metrics, and making recommendations on investment priorities to accelerate self-service success. I'm hoping these engagements have been as informative for the members as they have been for us.

As we head into 2017, I wanted to recap some trends and member pacesetter practices we are tracking related to self-service.

]]>Wed, 11 Jan 2017 11:00:00 GMTbb32d4f8-3c72-42fc-9f38-1036212b03bfLanding new customers will always be an important part of growing your business, but what happens after they've been onboarded? Tech companies invest a great deal of time and money in sales and marketing initiatives to capture net new business, but often overlook the chance to take advantage of revenue opportunities from within their existing customer base.
]]>Tue, 10 Jan 2017 22:11:21 GMT8be5c263-328e-4f7c-a78d-e6e35f9837dfThu, 05 Jan 2017 18:14:34 GMTf0a9f834-065f-4214-beb5-34be9979dbbaIn my last post, I shared the top 4 reasons why 9 out of 10 strategic plans fail. Now that we're in a new year and need to put these plans into motion, you'll need to get everyone in your company moving toward your established goals. In order to do this, it's best to make your strategic plan as focused and as simple as possible, but not too simple. Here are 6 tactics you can use to improve your strategic plan's success rate and achieve your goals.]]>Tue, 03 Jan 2017 14:58:00 GMTf5cc627b-73a3-4e7c-b940-fbad7ac8e6deTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 21 Dec 2016 11:00:00 GMT55e8add1-affc-453c-acbd-d8b4f41b19aaThe holidays are upon us once again, and along with them, the corresponding annual shopping season. For dads like me with school-aged children, this is also the time of year when I turn to my favorite e-tailers to fulfill our family's wish lists. It's a tough call as to whether I love my children or hate the mall with more fervor, so in our house, “Santazon.com" with “Reindeer Prime" delivery has saved Christmas like the repentant Grinch at the end of the book. I know that it's certainly made me a lot merrier.

As we proceed to checkout with our shopping carts, we notice the e-tailer's recommendation engine making "frequently bought with" suggestions at the bottom of our screens. If I'm buying my 11-year-old son a new PlayStation 4 (Shhh...it's a secret), I have no problem with the e-tailer making the suggestion that he also perhaps could use an extra controller or might enjoy a specific game to go with it.

Most people would find that sort of suggestion unintrusive and helpful, especially if buying those things at the same time offers better value and makes the best use out of the money I'm already spending on his gift. Based on millions of purchases and data points, the concept of predictive analytics being used to make purchasing suggestions has become a natural and accepted part of the online shopping experience.

]]>Tue, 20 Dec 2016 20:30:39 GMT497cd615-55a9-4ac2-aef7-e9d13870f8b5Fri, 16 Dec 2016 17:13:34 GMTca306159-1769-46f2-bd57-19d957a10e4dThu, 15 Dec 2016 19:28:44 GMTb0f7b84b-3be5-4793-b714-4a60c783f640value a mature project management capability can bring to a project is not being fully understood on both sides of the deal. After all, if the value of project management isn't being communicated to sales, how can they be expected to convince your customers they need it?]]>Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:56:17 GMTb85671b8-1a6e-46cc-b12c-eca450adecf3this slide deck featuring 3 key research trends from TSIA's Customer Success Benchmark Study.]]>Tue, 13 Dec 2016 22:31:12 GMT5a4bb337-2eea-40c6-8f2d-27d1e9dc7955TSIA outcome chains, an easy-to-use SaaS experience that makes consuming TSIA's vast vault of research and insights easier than ever before! If you have a service business challenge (SBC) that needs solving, our growing list of available outcome chains can match you with the right TSIA data, resources, and advice to help you solve it. Our library of currently available outcome chains spans across 8 service disciplines and is constantly growing. Today, you can immediately start addressing such challenges as reducing customer churn, building a managed XaaS offer, reducing cost per incident through self-service support channels, retaining field services talent, and more!]]>Thu, 08 Dec 2016 22:42:42 GMT501a20e8-55e2-42db-88f7-38f5117367f7I recently read a blog from TSIA's John Ragsdale on the state of knowledge management (KM) and what is shaping it today—how are organizations using it, what corporate cultures are they operating in, and who is still trying to fully understand the significant value knowledge management brings?

While there are many factors that can shape the view of knowledge management within an organization, those who have come to truly understand its value are reaping the rewards.

]]>Wed, 07 Dec 2016 11:00:00 GMT683434be-2fca-48c8-bdfb-e6c79cd0c1b9Service revenues continue to play a greater role in driving both top-line and bottom-line revenue growth in technology companies. For those who deploy their technology on a customer site, maintenance and support revenues represent a significant percentage of their service revenues. As a result, these companies are receiving increasing pressure from their C-level executives to grow maintenance and support revenues year over year, which adds to the expectations for sales and marketing leaders to make that growth happen.

However, before you can start down the path to growth, you should first assess the health of your existing maintenance and support revenues so that you can make the right investments, solve problem areas, and address any blind spots in your current reporting. Here is a list of 5 critical key performance indicators (KPIs) sales and marketing can use to measure the health of maintenance and support revenues.

]]>Thu, 01 Dec 2016 20:25:17 GMTabe94db5-5696-4859-914b-3b5fa00b4b7dthis SlideShare featuring 3 key research trends from TSIA's Education Services Benchmark Study.]]>Tue, 29 Nov 2016 14:26:00 GMT963d0963-93e5-4961-9702-55b03cba26cdTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 23 Nov 2016 11:00:00 GMTe402e43b-88f9-4943-8ae3-c9cb520f0e90Professional Services Automation solutions is on the rise, and has become a must-have technology for most business stakeholders within services organizations. PSA provides automation in core business areas along with the information necessary to make important business decisions in real-time.]]>Tue, 22 Nov 2016 11:00:00 GMTcc9389c8-68b9-4d8c-acaa-b74ad9c4fbd4TSIA's research executives, who keep their fingers on the pulse of what's new and what's next in technology and services in order to deliver compelling content, best practices, and tools to our members. To highlight the brilliant people behind the research that makes TSIA what it is, we've invited the VP of Customer Success Research, Phil Nanus, to tell us a bit about himself and his thoughts on both the current state and what the future holds in his area of research, customer success. ]]>Fri, 18 Nov 2016 00:36:56 GMT80702155-d37d-4ef5-9891-cc3463741984TSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here's a recap of this fall's TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed them! ]]>Wed, 16 Nov 2016 23:03:12 GMTbb5eae28-6421-4cce-ac0a-2ff441a51a7bTSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here's a recap of this fall's TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed them! ]]>Wed, 16 Nov 2016 22:32:20 GMT80bb962b-79b4-4325-96cb-c284005ba44bthis SlideShare featuring 3 key research trends from TSIA's Support Services Benchmark Study.]]>Tue, 15 Nov 2016 20:58:32 GMT23c2169e-0cf4-475c-82cd-1da8f23d10ecPer TSIA's professional services benchmark reports, professional services automation (PSA) adoption is on the rise, and organizations that implement it gain the following benefits when compared to their industry peers:

Higher billable utilization.

Better rate utilization.

Fewer days to staff projects.

Increased project margins.

]]>Wed, 09 Nov 2016 11:00:00 GMTd532594c-34f5-4fd8-bb1f-d7f2cefba0a5what exactly is customer successand what role can other service lines play in its execution? At TSIA, this is a question that is top of mind for many of our members. To provide some insight on how customer success relates to my specific area of research, education services, I'd like to provide an overview of the primary responsibilities of customer success and 7 ways education services can contribute to these activities.]]>Tue, 08 Nov 2016 23:00:29 GMT33e1cdd7-3b7e-4d6b-8e6c-a3d6450f9feaAs the legend goes, early in Google's storied history, the founding team was in a meeting with some of their early investors who asked them how they were planning to make money. The answer seems obvious now, but at the time, it was quite revolutionary. When people search for something, Google could show them ads based on what they were searching for, exactly at the moment they were thinking about it. It was a conversation and a concept that has revolutionized entire industries.

I was privileged to be one of Google's first 700 employees, and heard this story first-hand from the founders. They were committed to the idea that a company could make money without being "evil" about it, and that advertising could indeed be helpful if presented in the right way and at the right time. The AdWords program, and its underlying algorithms, were optimized over time so that the most useful advertisements were promoted to the top of the page. Google prioritized helpfulness over short-term gain, building a fiercely loyal audience, along with the world's most valuable brand, and made billions of dollars along the way.

]]>Thu, 03 Nov 2016 20:29:39 GMTfd1c17db-18b8-45c7-9faa-5b6d95543551STAR Awards are a way for these organizations to be publicly recognized by their peers as being among the best in the business. We'd like to take a moment to once again congratulate this year's winners on their achievements!]]>Wed, 02 Nov 2016 10:00:00 GMT2cfd2728-4d60-4d30-aee6-4e95e9c2025fthis SlideShare featuring 4 key research trends from TSIA's Service Revenue Generation Benchmark Study.]]>Tue, 01 Nov 2016 17:41:37 GMT6ae1cc86-f9c7-428c-9aed-4459d5486ed3Technology Services World Conferences, I like to look back over all the 1:1 meetings, breakout session questions, and hallway conversations, and come up with some of the top trends and issues I heard. Last Tuesday, I had 1:1 meetings scheduled from 8 AM to 5:30 PM, which was a great opportunity to hear what members are working on, where they are seeing success, and where they are struggling. ]]>Fri, 28 Oct 2016 10:00:00 GMT57b2570b-fdf4-4e29-88df-c6e4a46fe676Thu, 27 Oct 2016 10:00:00 GMTbca23333-dde1-4faf-b8b8-f7500790cc39TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 25 Oct 2016 10:00:00 GMT7beb2c8b-ba18-4980-a25d-144cbd954054Technology Services World Las Vegas, and I'm back to take a look at the top attended sessions from yesterday. Our 1,600+ attendees had more than 75 breakout sessions to choose from yesterday, crossing all of our service disciplines, with a good mix of tactical and strategic topics. I always like to point out the top attended sessions, because people vote with their feet for the hottest trends and topics.]]>Wed, 19 Oct 2016 18:39:00 GMTa55b99f0-5b9d-4101-be23-f9d43eb8d125Yesterday was the opening day of Technology Services World in Las Vegas, and it was an action packed day. I started with a partner advisory board meeting at 7AM, then a kickoff meeting for partners, and my opening keynote, "Overcoming Barriers to Knowledge Sharing" at 11:45. We definitely had more people attend my keynote than anticipated, and I'm sorry to everyone who didn't make it into the room. The seats were filled, and people standing 3 deep, so I tried my best to entertain!

My topic was improving enterprise knowledge sharing, and I highlighted data from my 2016 Knowledge Management Survey. Why is knowledge management such a hot topic? Because companies perceive improved knowledge sharing as a lever they can pull to improve operational effectiveness. Here’s the data:

]]>Tue, 18 Oct 2016 16:40:35 GMT173b5e0e-f6de-4159-93b3-5d5b6ad4a6b8“Why Services is the Big IoT Opportunity for Hardware Manufacturers," a free ebook by TSIA's Vele Galovski and Harald Kopp, is a roadmap hardware manufacturers can use to navigate the path to digitization and unlock the new business opportunities presented by smart services and the Internet of Things (IoT).]]>Thu, 13 Oct 2016 16:08:28 GMT0c82f186-ad74-4cbd-954b-84b2e8a1592eMany businesses aren't clear as to what good digital support entails, with only vague notions about lowering costs and improving customer experience. Their focus is instead on implementing a platform that gives them the best return on investment, which is measured in money (and time) saved.
]]>Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:00:00 GMT56a8d1b5-8057-47ba-b723-2cc04c2d0ac4this SlideShare featuring 5 key research trends from TSIA's Managed Services Benchmark Study.]]>Thu, 06 Oct 2016 17:36:07 GMT843c8d29-92a9-44a7-812f-476aefa7fc08Tue, 04 Oct 2016 22:12:50 GMT9dfe17f3-f914-4bb1-9f65-255a1f7237f2developing new offers for your education services business, you'll want to make sure you're providing offers that your customers want. So, how do you differentiate between what your customers want and what your education organization thinks they want? At TSIA, we recently conducted an Education Services Offer Development Survey, which aimed to collect insight regarding how education services (ES) organizations are leveraging new offers to maximize revenues and increase customer adoption. Based on the results from this survey, we learned some interesting details about what customers want compared to what they're receiving from their education services provider, which I'd like to share with you.]]>Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:00:00 GMT3ee5d675-f84f-444f-9e7a-c76bbac82b4eAdoption, Expansion, and Renewal.

As mature enterprise companies move more of their products to subscription-based pricing (even if on-premise) and cloud-based delivery (in some cases), they are starting to launch CSM efforts out of the same need. Companies like Cisco, Adobe, and Red Hat have proven the impact of CSM at scale in large enterprise organizations. It's a no-brainer that Customer Success should be an important part of any company's transition to a subscription business model. Spinning up and scaling your CSM organization, however, isn't so straightforward; it requires unique and careful planning. ]]>Wed, 28 Sep 2016 18:58:46 GMT0e31e6e7-2de3-4b82-9ed8-95182f304559view this SlideShare to see 3 key pacesetter trends we’ve uncovered through TSIA's Field Services Benchmark Study.]]>Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:10:15 GMT9c52c5cc-c8c7-4eab-866e-fbab9d83b9deTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 21 Sep 2016 11:30:00 GMTa8891408-9666-4846-ac9a-852cf85f1bbdWhat do landlines, books, postage stamps, greeting cards, and taxis (and the companies that sell them) have in common? Obsolescence! Meanwhile, startup companies like Uber and Airbnb have reached unicorn status with with zero inventories, and Amazon has changed the face of retail forever.
]]>Tue, 20 Sep 2016 11:30:00 GMT2490cebd-1e5f-414d-aeff-e4dc50dd00cdvirtualization is fueling demand for software running on industry standard hardware, and everyone is chasing higher margin, recurring revenue offers. Hardware companies are responding to these shifts by augmenting their portfolios to include more software and services offerings, but many are struggling with the transition.]]>Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:30:00 GMTb99ecbca-fdc6-4a10-a02d-c5f3b84d8fe9this SlideShare featuring 4 key research trends from TSIA's Professional Services Benchmark Study.]]>Tue, 13 Sep 2016 20:04:54 GMT27699dd2-96dc-4965-92bb-a840b2a9d666In an increasingly connected world, the Internet of Things (IoT) is forcing traditional hardware manufacturers to rethink how they run their businesses. The historical make/sell/ship business model is no longer sufficient now that customers expect providers to help them save money and improve their business outcomes.
]]>Sat, 10 Sep 2016 04:18:09 GMTf7578d9b-1e10-44f9-b93e-a4d8f9aedd8cJeremy DalleTezze, TSIA's vice president of Data Analytics Research. ]]>Thu, 08 Sep 2016 11:30:00 GMT3bd7d99f-9a92-49d7-b0d4-82c5397df192Professional Services community to share their experiences in this area, resulting in us receiving detailed responses from 56 companies. Though brief, the survey yielded some surprising and interesting results. In this blog post, I'd like to share some survey highlights with you. ]]>Tue, 06 Sep 2016 20:23:14 GMT9212e10a-6c41-4971-b4b0-24e0ea8b6701Technology Services World conferences are the best place to learn new business strategies from leading technology and services industry experts, network with peers, and explore the latest solutions that can help your business grow and thrive for years to come. At TSW Las Vegas 2016, you'll join over 1,600 other service leaders from all areas of tech to learn how to prepare your organization for the future of cloud-based service offers and business models with our theme, “Aligning for Growth and Outcomes.” In this infographic, you'll get a preview of the conference highlights and keynote speakers you can look forward to by joining us October 17-19 at the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.]]>Thu, 01 Sep 2016 05:00:00 GMT1241a891-1467-411b-aecb-d96f94d1d5cbestablishing Customer Success organizations and the capabilities and skills needed to staff them. To address this topic, I'd like to share with you three of the top skills you'll want to look for when hiring a Customer Success Manager for your organization.]]>Wed, 31 Aug 2016 21:16:08 GMT9a2a510b-c21c-4fef-9126-7fafb1af3e3cTSIA. We provide our members with the relevant industry research, business frameworks, and benchmarking they need to optimize their service businesses, overcome top challenges, and achieve their goals. To share an example of what you can accomplish with a TSIA membership, here's a case study of how we helped one of our members within the industrial equipment industry improve customer adoption of their technology with their existing field services team.]]>Tue, 30 Aug 2016 11:30:00 GMT5126328f-8de3-4245-91a2-daeaff83a948TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:30:00 GMT55c30014-4533-4e88-81c4-f0dc816747ac“How to Actually Make Money in the Cloud” was featured on Inc.com, the web presence of Inc. Magazine, which has been the premier print publication for entrepreneurs and business owners for more than 30 years. In this article, we provide a brief background into the emergence of cloud-based business models, explaining that even though they attract the financial interest of visionary entrepreneurs, many are struggling to be profitable. Using examples from our newest book, “Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription Business,” we discuss the emerging financial patterns that can help business leaders think more completely about their journey to creating a profitable SaaS business. Here's an excerpt from the full article, which you can read here on Inc.com.]]>Wed, 24 Aug 2016 21:44:01 GMT909d0779-6885-455c-8ab0-219035aa0a4fGreat self-service is something most companies aspire to provide, in pursuit of an exceptional customer experience. When done well, it increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. It’s also cheaper and relieves the contact center from the burden of answering repetitive calls.

97% of the support leaders TSIA surveyed plan to invest in self-service tools in the next two years. To select the right tools, you first need to have a clear vision of what great self-service means to you and your customer.

]]>Tue, 23 Aug 2016 20:51:15 GMT788d61f4-f6dc-4c71-9c23-133c0c1c77bb"anything as a service" requires pricing versatility that cannot be achieved with more traditional price structures.]]>Tue, 16 Aug 2016 20:45:20 GMT35010bc3-b49d-4096-8196-66abc7b4bf61customer success. With the help of this data, we've created a list of recommendations for building a customer success function within your company.]]>Thu, 11 Aug 2016 20:13:06 GMT39e984d8-1ad7-4965-a7cb-44d075a42ba6TSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here's a recap of this summer's TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed them! ]]>Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:30:00 GMT57b4459f-a227-4342-a95a-d3f352d69562Implementing a good knowledge management system is key to improved productivity within your organization, and can be achieved through proper transformation of your KM processes, people, and technology. Though many companies are moving toward adopting and using KM tools, many may not be using them to their full potential. In TSIA’s annual Knowledge Management Survey, we ask participants about their current core knowledge management processes, tools, and metrics to see how their company is sharing knowledge within their organization.
]]>Fri, 05 Aug 2016 19:49:07 GMT76d5fee0-9859-448c-b308-3264aadc6cbaThu, 04 Aug 2016 20:42:00 GMTda7faef9-fea3-436a-b9cd-8c6c5f69201aTechnology Services Industry Association (TSIA) is where technology industry leaders go to get the right insight they'll need to optimize their service business. Using the most relevant data, research, and business strategies, we help our members overcome their top business challenges, successfully implement new business models, and maintain the highest performance possible for their operation. In this short video, you'll hear from four of our members as they describe their experience with TSIA, and how membership has helped their businesses.]]>Fri, 29 Jul 2016 17:52:18 GMT528dc45f-709f-4419-95e7-22b1522e6747Over the past few years, there's been a significant increase in the amount of service revenue coming from managed services, making it the fastest growing service line in the technology industry. With so much growth and activity, it’s important that all managed services providers understand exactly which critical metrics and managed services KPIs (key performance indicators) they should be monitoring to track their overall performance, as well as how those figures will evolve over time.
]]>Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:30:00 GMT49f6cddb-84e9-455f-82bb-985513593ab4TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:36:00 GMT19b4da30-4fd4-448e-bea4-5ee8ee544844Technology Services World conferences, industry leaders from all over the world come together to share success strategies and learn from the experts on how to solve their top business challenges. TSW provides you with the most relevant content and real business advice you can immediately bring back and apply to your organization. From gathering new ideas to explore with your team, to learning tips and tricks from new contacts who have undergone a similar business journey, there’s a lot of inspiration and knowledge to be gained by attending. In this short video, you’ll hear real stories from several attendees from companies like Autodesk, Pitney Bowes, PTC, and more, as they share with you the ongoing value you can expect to receive by attending TSW conferences.]]>Fri, 22 Jul 2016 11:30:00 GMT61253567-bccf-4bef-a1c2-5e2f1a341c5eOperational Best Practices (OBP) programs. These rigorous assessments allow technology companies to accurately measure all aspects of their customers’ technical support experience, from their interactions with their people, processes, and technology, as they strive to provide the best customer experience and establish themselves as an industry leader in customer satisfaction.]]>Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:24:00 GMT510f3ac6-356a-4795-9ba6-5c09bd9bc644Global Technology Survey allows us to get a detailed look at which new technology and organizational capabilities are seeing the most investment dollars from some of the top companies in the industry. Although overall planned spending is high across all survey categories, which relate in some way to one or several of TSIA's service disciplines, there were some key investment areas that stood out, especially in the Europe, Middle East, and Asia (EMEA) regions. In fact, over 80% of our international respondents are planning the majority of their spending in three main categories over the next one to two years. For any technology organization considering additional investments in technology and services in the years ahead, it's always a good idea to see where your peers have already adopted solutions in order to avoid losing a competitive edge. In this post, I'd like to share the top three areas EMEA region companies are investing in: billing and invoicing systems, IoT/smart services platforms, and self-service portals. ]]>Thu, 14 Jul 2016 11:30:00 GMTac9cf0f4-61f0-41cb-92ef-c4a22acdec0fTue, 12 Jul 2016 13:43:00 GMTd3aca6ee-54b4-40d2-ad98-e7b4dbd8717eTSIA's research executives, who keep their fingers on the pulse of what's new and what's next in technology and services in order to deliver compelling content, best practices, and tools to our members. To highlight the brilliant people behind the research that makes TSIA what it is, we've invited the VP of Field Services research, Vele Galovski, to tell us a bit about himself and his thoughts on what the future holds in his area of research, field services.]]>Thu, 07 Jul 2016 16:21:46 GMTcd03ba70-cfea-4bbc-8204-48389f2330feThu, 30 Jun 2016 22:04:02 GMT3c18509c-82fe-4a16-b6fb-59becc222341TSIA membership can add value to your business, but why not hear it directly from one of our members? In this video clip, Kurt Kuelz of Camstar Systems, Inc., a Siemens business, talks about how a TSIA membership has helped Camstar accelerate their education offerings and grow their revenue. Here's what he had to say!]]>Tue, 28 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMT5306f9c4-0160-4985-b723-8e3c0235d028Technology Services World conference, technology leaders across the industry have been expressing their praise for Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription Business.]]>Thu, 23 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMT513e1063-7628-4bfc-a96d-9a8c5db8aacaBest Practices for Reducing On-Site Incident Costs," I gave a walkthrough of the TSIA outcome chain I've built to address and solve this business challenge for our Field Services members. Within that outcome chain, I highlighted the 5 key performance indicators (KPIs) that drive these on-site incident costs and gave examples of how these areas can be improved in order to reduce costs.]]>Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:50:00 GMTbc78b0ac-afd8-45f5-b66f-05cf52acf065last blog post, I talked about how education services organizations can use certification programs as part of their customer adoption strategy. Now that you know more about the role certification can play in keeping your customers engaged with your content, it's worth evaluating how your current certification program stacks up based on industry best practices, or if you do not yet have a certification program, looking into how you can get started.]]>Thu, 16 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMT3820dc19-1f85-4ff4-bb5d-157f68c7bdccMember Success."]]>Tue, 14 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMTb2068f58-d891-4887-badf-7636a04c237awatch them here!]]>Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMT2ca0a672-2b4a-4035-b6cf-f73e7e37305bSince its inception, the internet has had a monumental impact on the world we live in, from gross domestic product (GDP), gross global value creation and destruction, profit performance, social networks, commerce and cyber security, emergency management, and advertising, just to name a few.

As a result, equipment manufacturers are facing many new challenges as connected devices are changing the world and old business models are shattering. But, they can possibly learn from other past miscalculations, particularly brick and mortar retailers that have a physical asset to sell while dealing with the commercialization of products and increasing focus on services and the customer experience.

]]>Tue, 07 Jun 2016 13:40:00 GMTea8b77e4-349c-4b27-8fb4-0bf8050b26f5professional services (PS) leader based in the Netherlands about resource management. He held a strong belief that resource management, or staffing, was better and more efficient when controlled locally or within the geography (or GEO). He was very adamant that staffing managing consultants, contractors, and project managers on billable projects was more effectively accomplished if they were controlled by the professional service organization that resided within the GEO. His justifications were that the GEO was most familiar with the skill sets and the availability of the resources, prior customer engagements/projects, and which resources were better suited with being deployed to customers, as some had very good standing relations with them.]]>Thu, 02 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMT5c442420-1967-4440-b403-602ad4b713c0TSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here’s a recap of this spring's TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed them! ]]>Wed, 01 Jun 2016 11:30:00 GMT10b30e5f-cf8c-4f4a-a195-dbad2c522e29TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 31 May 2016 13:46:00 GMTecff570e-bdcb-4aab-9373-96ae5ebceff9TSIA’s Global Technology Survey saw a major overhaul. The survey grew from 24 categories in 2015 to 42 categories this year, incorporating new technologies for our expanded list of service disciplines, as well as breaking out some broad categories to track individual tools more granularly. For each category, the survey asked respondents which tool they are using, how satisfied they are with it, and in what areas they are planning additional investments in 2016-2017. The output from the survey includes an overview report, The 2016 Technology Services Heatmap, adoption and planned spending reports for each discipline, and the 2016 Top Installed report, listing the most popular tools in each of the 42 categories.]]>Thu, 26 May 2016 11:30:00 GMTf83698ef-85fd-4760-844e-2222ea9d46faTechnology Services World (TSW) conference hosted by TSIA, and the Pulse conference hosted by Gainsight. Between the many keynotes, breakout sessions, and discussion with attendees, I've put together a quick list of the top four themes I heard from the two conferences that I'd like to share with you as TSIA's new VP of customer success research. ]]>Tue, 24 May 2016 11:30:00 GMT4927e9c5-2480-4a23-bfc5-69a7322f57e4Pulse 2016 conference and had the honor of presenting as a keynote speaker, as well as facilitating panel discussions with industry leaders. In my main stage keynote, "Digging Economic Moats for Your XaaS Business," I shared a few concepts from TSIA's new book, Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription Business, specifically how SaaS and other subscription companies need to evolve their business and financial models in a way that facilitates actual (GaaP) profits for them by delivering great business outcomes for their customers. Take a look at this SlideShare of my Pulse presentation, where I outline the six economic moats that have made tech into such a profitable industry, as well as the critical role that customer success organizations can play in helping your organization maintain competitive advantage, keep customers on your platform, and most importantly, produce profits. You can also watch a video recording of my presentation online.]]>Wed, 18 May 2016 11:30:00 GMT6c726d7a-116e-4788-a341-bcc6ec7973f8TSIA's research executives, who keep their fingers on the pulse of what's new and what's next in technology and services in order to deliver compelling content, best practices, and tools to our members. To highlight the brilliant people behind the research that makes TSIA what it is, we've invited the VP of Service Revenue Generation research, Julia Stegman, to tell us a bit about herself and her thoughts on both the current state and what the future holds in her area of research, service revenue generation. ]]>Tue, 17 May 2016 16:47:24 GMT93ccbfb1-c4af-4dce-bb04-568fdca97a41MarTech Advisor, a marketing technology publication, called, "Why Marketing Technology Platforms Need New Innovations to Drive Revenue and Growth," about how Expand Selling and TSIA's LAER model applies to the role of marketing. In this post, I explain how important it is for marketers to focus on finding the right technology innovations that will enable them to better drive ROI for their business and cost-effectively re-ignite revenue growth.]]>Thu, 12 May 2016 11:30:00 GMT84f44d3b-ae42-4b3b-995e-335977ad4419Technology Services World (TSW) conference in beautiful San Diego. I had a really busy week with 11 presentations, including a technology keynote and the EXPO Tour, and I spent most of Wednesday in 1:1 meetings with members, talking about their technology challenges. Based on questions asked during breakout sessions, my meetings, and dozens of hallway and EXPO conversations, I've put together a list of the common themes I heard that I'd like to share with you.]]>Tue, 10 May 2016 13:38:00 GMT82ddf192-2541-4c7c-af7b-e114fd42780dTechnology Services World in San Diego. If I am counting correctly, this is my 21st TSIA conference, and it is really incredible to see how the events have grown over the years. Yesterday, I hosted the Social Track, and participated in six sessions. It was a crazy day, but a lot of great discussions. Here are some common threads from the social sessions, as well as a list of the top attended sessions of Day 2.]]>Wed, 04 May 2016 22:32:00 GMT73a71519-2776-41e6-b0bf-59617cbe3a3bTechnology Services World conference, located for the first time at the beautiful Hilton Bayfront in San Diego. I started my day with a Partner Advisory Board meeting, then presented in the kickoff meeting for our exhibiting partners in the TSIA | EXPO. I always like to give the partners some information on the latest trends and top business challenges of attending companies to help them better shape their messages and inform their conversations.]]>Tue, 03 May 2016 17:28:00 GMT0d6648fa-835e-4cd5-8204-1f2675517d5bTSIA State of Services for Industrial Equipment Manufacturers 2016".]]>Fri, 29 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMT53558be2-1bc5-4217-b011-bda9b926a09cB4B, we established that technology suppliers are evolving from simply delivering products to also delivering business outcomes to their customers. Out of this growing trend came a new idea called "outcome engineering," where solutions providers present their customers with clear paths to success using their technology. TSIA is now applying that same concept to help our members improve their service business outcomes by leveraging our research, data, and business frameworks with the help of a new tool, TSIA Outcome Chains. ]]>Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMT85abd94e-308b-4e35-8b65-0a12644789ecIn today’s subscription-centric world, customer churn is like kryptonite. Even in small amounts, it is toxic to the business. It’s therefore not surprising that service organizations are looking for every lever they can pull to drive customer adoption of their solution as a means to help secure subscription renewals.

For example, customer success organizations are being put in place to ensure customers are properly onboarded onto the platform. Robust analytics capabilities are being developed that allow solution providers to see how widely and effectively users are adopting their technology. Professional services organizations are starting to develop new adoption services and change management offers whose goal is to improve user adoption.

]]>Fri, 22 Apr 2016 17:25:01 GMT24694bac-92e4-47be-814f-72006bec10fbSince 2005, TSIA has been tracking service revenue and profit trends in the technology industry in our widely followed Technology & Services 50 index. We aggregate the financial performance of these fifty companies from the public record and identify service revenue and profitability trends, as well as provide critical observations based on the current quarterly update of 50 of the largest global providers of technology services. What's more, TSIA now has an interactive dashboard allowing our members to play around with the data themselves!
]]>Thu, 21 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMTc1be6efd-a083-4571-88be-f61af859ef0cTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMT48e6f6db-c584-4714-bd99-eb99f53af9d6TSIA's research executives, who keep their fingers on the pulse of what's new and what's next in technology and services in order to deliver compelling content, best practices, and tools to our members. To highlight the brilliant people behind the research that makes TSIA what it is, we've invited the VP of Support Services research, Judith Platz, to tell us a bit about herself and her thoughts on both the current state and what the future holds in her area of research, customer success and support services]]>Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMT52b284e5-b822-4bff-8a2c-6e560737a30emaking the B4B shift from delivering products to services, as well as the increasing importance of providing customer outcomes. While this drastic change might seem like it only applies to product manufacturers, the reality is that non-manufacturers are also feeling an increased pressure to rethink how they gain new and retain existing customers. I'd like to take a minute to highlight how non-manufacturer companies within our managed services membership community are able to apply TSIA research to their operations and successfully adapt.]]>Thu, 14 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMT6f648d61-1649-4978-9bb8-b83b2896b2e5Mon, 11 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMTd74ee2b7-8ac3-4db9-a895-0e8d33b29653TSW San Diego 2016, we'll be unveiling a new SaaS solution designed from the ground up to help teams build a better roadmap to the business outcomes they want: TSIA outcome chains.]]>Thu, 07 Apr 2016 11:30:00 GMTed032504-cd5a-4cab-8f32-982b62dc4500respective area of research and hosts a 30-minute TSIA Pulse webinar going over the highlights. Here's a roundup of the TSIA Pulse sessions from Winter 2016, including the discipline-specific predictions forecasts you might have missed!]]>Wed, 06 Apr 2016 14:11:00 GMTdb8a24f4-2fe0-4b9c-a0c9-b0a10a5681c3Francoise Tourniaire published the first edition of The Art of Support. Boy, the world has changed a lot since 1996, and the world of support has radically changed in the last 20 years. I’m happy to report that Francoise is back with a brand new edition of the book, The Art of Support: A Blueprint for Customer Success and Support Organizations, rewritten to reflect the realities of supporting customers today, including impacts such as social, mobile, customer success, new quality measures such as Customer Effort Scores, and a whole lot more. The book is available on Amazon in Kindle format, and available in hard copy from the FTWorks.com website. It will be available in hard copy from additional booksellers soon!]]>Tue, 05 Apr 2016 12:30:00 GMTb5f37a50-b92e-46ac-a613-513584152941low, to high, to effective consumption of a product or service. When it comes to education services, the best way to gauge where someone is on the adoption gradient is to think about it in terms of the content you're providing, and how it's being consumed by your learners. The processes for measuring this consumption varies by whether you're delivering content using a "broad" or "deep" approach, which we'll discuss in just a bit.]]>Thu, 31 Mar 2016 11:30:00 GMT4d6bbfa8-d6d2-4b4f-943d-ad7a19b42f85TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 25 Mar 2016 11:30:00 GMT62e0705f-c806-4ee8-b75b-69bc8347affeflat or declining product sales is prompting executives to call upon their support organizations to drive even more high-profit revenue. However, before this level of cost-effective improvement can be achieved, support service organizations must focus on transformation in four key areas. To begin this process, it's recommended to start by building or refining strategies in these four areas: customer experience, customer engagement, support modernization, and technology adoption.]]>Tue, 22 Mar 2016 21:06:51 GMTef2cbf4a-b069-4d9c-b60f-f6fb09c564ecB4B, we talked about the rising popularity of cloud-based business models, and the transition technology companies are making from products to services. Now, it’s time for us to embark on the next part of this journey. As customers choose new ways to consume technology, more solutions providers are adding subscription-based technology-as-a-service (XaaS) offers into their portfolios. While the industry-wide shift to the cloud isn’t new, it’s clear that many businesses are still struggling to make their XaaS offer profitable.]]>Tue, 15 Mar 2016 21:21:05 GMT3d5b7088-1c2c-45a8-8622-d9c276f3634bWith traditional product-based businesses experiencing flat or declining revenues, there’s never been a better time to break into the cloud market and develop new technology-as-a-service (XaaS) offers. Unfortunately, many companies who have already made this transformation to a cloud business model are still struggling with profitability and scalability.
]]>Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:55:00 GMT10322431-a4c2-487c-86d9-9a9bd0a1a545Tue, 08 Mar 2016 13:30:00 GMT7e8b04b6-dc05-4d36-994b-fac62a899c1aServiceMax, called, “5 ‘Can't Miss’ Mobility Tactics for 2016.” The response from attendees was so positive, I thought it was worth highlighting some of the content we covered in a blog post, especially in regards to preventative and proactive support. In fact, recent TSIA research has shown us that our members have been able to eliminate 37.3% of onsite visits through the use of proactive support! In today's post, I'm going to explain how leveraging your field service technicians as a resource for providing preventative and proactive support can help your organization achieve similar results.]]>Mon, 29 Feb 2016 14:38:00 GMT970ed03e-e2f5-4d60-9749-d41f9203936bThu, 25 Feb 2016 22:50:29 GMT0edea024-7e71-4639-a87e-dd139b34028dTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here's a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 23 Feb 2016 13:30:00 GMT194fd69c-734e-4fae-aea2-a221669523e7recent TSW session, “Why Customer Experience is Vital to Your Company's Success.” In this session, co-presented by Verint and Snap-on Tools, a leading global innovator, manufacturer, and marketer of tools, we discussed how the Snap-on Tools Customer Care Center uses Verint Speech Analytics to capture critical feedback from their customers and has incorporated it into their customer journey mapping to quantify the customer experience.]]>Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:30:00 GMT4408aaf7-8333-43ce-a4a4-d0432f974020our members had to say about TSIA. Watch this video to see how our research, benchmarking, world-class business frameworks, and thought leadership have helped hundreds of the industry’s leading companies overcome top challenges, improve their processes, and achieve their desired business outcomes.]]>Fri, 12 Feb 2016 22:32:29 GMTfb510bd9-bf29-49e6-835a-9feeff6b47b5A common dilemma many professional services organizations face is competitively pricing their services in a way that they can also stay profitable. The unfortunate reality is that, without an effective pricing strategy in place, improper discounting practices and low list rates can lead to these organizations drastically undercharging for valuable services. Fortunately there is a solution, and the first step to improving your professional services pricing strategy is identifying the areas within your current plan that need the most improvement. Use this handy flow chart to quickly assess how you can improve your professional services pricing strategy by evaluating two critical components that could be negatively affecting your organization’s profitability: list rates and discounting.
]]>Wed, 10 Feb 2016 03:52:32 GMTbdd697f4-302d-403f-9396-916488a2d1adan incredible disruption to their tried-and-true business models. While traditional products will always remain an important revenue source, now is the time for technology providers to develop more subscription-based cloud offers in order to meet changing customer expectations and keep pace with industry trends. To make the transition from a product-based business model to one that includes technology-as-a-service (XaaS) offers go as smoothly as possible, leaders need to know which service capabilities to invest in before making the change. To provide some guidance on this journey, TSIA has created the 2016 Service Capability Heatmap.]]>Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:55:26 GMT766d3795-5e4a-4a40-a632-6d0eea261cc9TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here’s a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 29 Jan 2016 12:30:00 GMT8d2aeece-9978-421e-afe3-4d7e81ea28f6While it will always be important for technology companies to create great technology, they must also take a more proactive role in ensuring their customers are successfully using the technology. As a result, many technology companies have begun offering adoption services. Though traditional services focus on making technology available to customers, adoption services deliver a more compelling value proposition–they ensure customers derive value from the technology in an accelerated manner.
]]>Thu, 28 Jan 2016 12:30:00 GMT579ce44e-d966-489d-b496-8196c11a637eThe subscription economy continues to push its way into our everyday lives. It’s highly likely that nearly everyone reading this post has a subscription to Netflix, Spotify, or ZipCar, or even Dollar Shave Club.

In technology, the subscription shift isn’t just happening on the consumer side—many enterprise technology providers are also making the transition. The SaaS segment of enterprise software will grow at an aggressive 18 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next three years, and will represent approximately 31 percent of the total software economy by 2018.

In this post, we will outline why delivering a remarkable end-to-end customer experience is key to subscription success, two golden rules of customer engagement, common barriers to success, and the power of customer journey mapping in achieving it.

]]>Tue, 26 Jan 2016 13:30:00 GMT164cf948-b5e5-467c-8e98-07c6dcd0e74cadoption services that give your customers the training, support, and resources they need in order to realize the full value of a solution. ]]>Thu, 21 Jan 2016 17:53:57 GMT4cb16bb3-1c30-4e9d-a3f7-9da308d0dee1Thu, 14 Jan 2016 12:30:00 GMT62924224-bef8-4450-a425-34985278529dTue, 12 Jan 2016 20:40:06 GMTfe57fdf8-01ec-40f2-affb-b2cc4f312190customer onboarding process as “our one perfect moment.” The logic was that it’s the single period of time when the customer is completely dependent upon the vendor before they’re able to take the next step forward. After all, during the sales process, they still have a choice whether to walk away or continue down the path to signing a deal. During the onboarding period, they are highly motivated to get started and are awaiting clear instructions from you, the vendor, as to what to do next. How you handle this transition will have a great impact on their decision to continue with your solution.]]>Thu, 07 Jan 2016 12:30:00 GMTf573b946-ca2c-4ce9-aacc-59aa7a108e4fTSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here’s a recap of this winter's TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed them! ]]>Tue, 05 Jan 2016 13:30:00 GMTf4899ff4-1d51-45dd-b9f9-b40e7a738449TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here’s a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Tue, 29 Dec 2015 13:30:00 GMTae9ade56-22ba-4cdc-b881-52e8507eb27bcustomer outcomes should be a top priority for today’s support organizations. It’s no longer enough to keep a technical asset up and running, but there is now the added expectation to help customers solve their business challenges and deliver measurable ROI. To meet changing customer demands, it is our responsibility as support services organizations to make sure our personnel fully understand their new role in today’s world and equip them with the tools and training they’ll need to maintain and increase customer loyalty and revenue.]]>Tue, 22 Dec 2015 18:11:10 GMT265779c0-a98c-475c-8a0a-a2412bbc4541Ten years ago when you asked a professional services (PS) executive what tool they used to manage PS resources, projects, and billables, the answer was almost always the same: spreadsheets. Professional services automation, or PSA, was just being introduced a decade ago, and while it took a few years for PS organizations to realize the benefits of automation, today questions about selecting PSA platforms have become my most frequent inquiry topic from TSIA members. In this blog post, I will share the information I provide to members in these inquiries, and hopefully give you a head start on your next PSA implementation!
]]>Mon, 21 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMTb8135f0e-4c83-4de4-a827-ee2b6c613101frameworks, case studies, and lots of conversations with our members about how to leverage big data assets. During these conversations, I walk our members through a succession of questions, starting with their goals, current plans, and progressing through to their data assets and analytic capabilities. In many conversations, members inform me that they have limited, or no, access to rich customer data. In particular, they have no line of sight into how their customers are leveraging their products and/or services. ]]>Fri, 18 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMTfe9db9cd-ecf5-4987-b221-83eff556848ddeclined steeply in 2015, with tens of billions of dollars coming off the table quarter after quarter.]]>Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMT3a055b37-a1d6-4bca-a2c2-85e3e1a2a4bcState of Professional Services” white paper, we concluded that 2014 had been a banner year for technology professional services organizations, with the prospects for 2015 being generally very good for the following reasons:]]>Wed, 16 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMT83435e6e-5ed6-456a-9645-77fc0e7a33a1Manufacturers of industrial equipment, components, and instruments have, on average, a service revenue share of 30%, which has been stable over the last two years. This has been shown by the results of TSIA's Industrial 30 index, which analyzes the quarterly reports of 30 industrial manufacturers reporting their service revenues.

We’ve found that the service revenue share was stable during five quarters of revenue growth, and it is still stable after two quarters of shrinking revenues of 7%, as compared to last year. This shows that a huge part of services in industrial equipment are product-attached. Fewer product sales mean fewer implementations, lower product utilization by customers means fewer repairs, and customers under pressure even reduces support levels. Some services, like calibration or mission-critical support, are stable.

]]>Tue, 15 Dec 2015 13:30:00 GMT0e0a4019-8930-4f6e-91ea-3064da84922eFri, 11 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMT224335e5-d81f-4684-95b4-5124294f8adfWhen it comes to getting customers to renew their subscription with your XaaS offer, does your current renewal engagement model consist of managed handoffs between your internal teams, or is it total chaos? In the recent TSIA SRG Cloud Benchmark Study, we aimed to find out how top companies in the technology services industry are structuring their subscription renewal process, as well as get a detailed look at which metrics they’re using to track their success.
]]>Thu, 10 Dec 2015 15:30:00 GMT39740f36-1cdb-41fe-a36b-5f88fcf4b1f9 or are developing a managed services business. However, as these tech leaders start to embrace managed services, they learn very quickly how daunting and different these business models are from hardware, software, and traditional services such as professional, support, and field services.]]>Wed, 09 Dec 2015 20:06:48 GMT50122fbf-ef39-4927-913d-854b6c896606Education Services(ES) membership is, “How can education services help drive adoption?” To answer this question, let’s start with a definition of adoption. Adoption, in its simplest form, is getting a customer to use the product more, whether it’s a technology product, education product, or both. ]]>Tue, 08 Dec 2015 13:30:00 GMT84d89353-d022-4af0-97c1-37a0690c4857Employee attrition is a key field service metric with growing importance. This is due to a number of factors, such as talent wars starting to heat up as field service engineers near retirement age, significant commitment to training, and positive hiring trends due to both growth and replacements.
]]>Mon, 07 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMTa01f07bf-04b1-49c3-b0e6-b537f3119111TSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here’s a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Fri, 04 Dec 2015 12:30:00 GMT76ead55d-1e4c-4df7-afbb-e73b71a7d6ebI receive more questions about customer portals, i.e., the web self-service site, than just about anything else. It’s a topic that continues to be top of mind with TSIA members, even prompting quite a few discussions with Technology & Services World conference attendees about their customer portal journey, including some amazing results, and unfortunately, some political, technical and financial challenges.

To gather some of these thoughts together and answer some common questions surrounding how your organization can go about creating the ultimate customer portal, I’ll be discussing some key tips and tricks covering design, function, and features.

]]>Tue, 01 Dec 2015 13:30:00 GMT580a5713-0b96-4975-b00b-67dd284f62a5within your existing customer base, and why it’s so important for the future health of your organization in his keynote presentation, “Growing Customers Successfully.”]]>Tue, 24 Nov 2015 13:30:00 GMTe7cd9785-1e00-40b8-9fc6-fadd0f24335dhard and soft skills.]]>Mon, 23 Nov 2015 17:32:55 GMT95350c6c-fa4d-4f4c-8e09-f19e0f3b8bb5TSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. Here’s a recap of this fall’s TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed them! ]]>Fri, 20 Nov 2015 12:30:00 GMT43f4e81e-9d39-4c1f-9bdf-b04e259a3ed6delivery-intensive model to a content-intensive model. To support that strategy, education organizations will need to add some new capabilities to their repertoire.]]>Thu, 19 Nov 2015 12:30:00 GMT9ccb3057-27b2-434e-9407-ad28f8e0cd9bAs services eat products and software eats services, there are significant changes happening to success plays within the technology industry. The companies that will be the most successful are the ones who take an active role in supporting their customers as they grow their businesses. In fact, this was the topic of the opening keynote of our recent Technology Services World conference, presented by TSIA’s president and CEO, J.B. Wood.

During the rest of the conference, there were a lot of hot topics relevant to manufactures of industrial equipment (IE) presented in sessions, TSIA’s Industrial Equipment Advisory Board meetings, and 1:1 discussions. Based on this content and feedback from conference participants, it's clear that the business environment for industrial equipment manufacturers is changing in several big ways.

]]>Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:30:00 GMT153e58c8-18a7-49c2-8f86-8d6076bb8eecdelivering business outcomes to customers. It seems obvious, yet this has not been the traditional rallying cry within our industry. Instead, we’ve spent decades perfecting the model of matching product features and capabilities to customer tasks and processes. Certainly, this has benefited customers and suppliers alike, helping us achieve unprecedented levels of productivity and efficiency in managing core business functions. But in today’s age of results, we at TSIA would argue that while this approach is still necessary, it is no longer sufficient.]]>Tue, 10 Nov 2015 13:30:00 GMTc4e8d4ee-49d7-4232-8bc8-aca865dcb2ebRecurring revenues with existing customers have a natural tendency to decline. Like many XaaS executives, you may be asking, “What are the forces that create erosion and growth with subscription revenues?"
]]>Fri, 06 Nov 2015 17:58:29 GMT7b01dee7-9ef3-4a25-b2bb-4c5e2e1bb8f1Technology Services World conference is now complete, with 1,500 attendees and 100+ breakout sessions over three days at the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. I presented two breakout sessions, and spent the majority of the remaining time in 30-minute one-on-one meetings, completing about 15 meetings with members and partners. In addition to those meetings, I had a few dozen conversations after sessions or in the EXPO. Thinking back over all of those interactions, I’ve pulled together a list of the hottest topics on the minds of the TSIA community.]]>Thu, 05 Nov 2015 12:30:00 GMTc9b1d942-fe62-4b0b-a639-b5e336fb2bbcTSIA community who have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here’s a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Wed, 04 Nov 2015 12:30:00 GMT08e6b53f-b13e-4af6-bdf6-20545d7a3b8d“How to Avoid the 5 Most Common Mistakes Made in Managed Services.” It’s totally free, and you can download it here! Here’s a brief synopsis of what it’s about.]]>Wed, 28 Oct 2015 19:21:22 GMT9f89b1fc-a05f-41a7-8953-e7639dac84b2TSIA STAR Awards who were announced on the final day of the conference at the Awards Gala and acknowledge their dedication to excellence! ]]>Mon, 26 Oct 2015 15:55:00 GMTd09f2796-8d71-48ea-9ef7-a48c3ef8a57aThu, 15 Oct 2015 11:30:00 GMTe3f3edb5-95a3-4e98-8826-55a7f67040c9leverage managed services in their transition to a more outcome-based business model, developing the right sales strategy is at top of mind. However, due to longer sales cycles, higher cost of sales, and higher risk/reward opportunities, selling managed services is quite different than selling any other kind of technology. Providers can no longer take the “same old sales” approach if they’re to achieve their ROI, but must ensure they have the right processes and people in place to properly sell managed services. ]]>Wed, 14 Oct 2015 22:15:40 GMT9061ee54-6557-471e-b690-e0b838dc6754Fri, 09 Oct 2015 16:11:49 GMT3d0aa1c3-3051-4415-833b-3f12ad7d55aaI already know what you’re thinking; we’ve all been taught since a very young age that stealing is bad. We place a lot of greatness on the innovators, the people who came up with the new idea, saying, “We don’t copy, we create. We don’t follow, we lead.” Unfortunately, this inability to adopt game changing ideas and incorporate them into our daily operations simply because it “wasn’t invented here” can slow us down, and inhibits company growth. In this post, I’ll show you why it’s okay to shamelessly steal, as long as you give credit of course, and why it’s a great way to quickly drive breakthroughs within your organization.
]]>Thu, 08 Oct 2015 11:30:00 GMT7d993bb1-7d5f-45c7-b670-298eaac12462Tue, 06 Oct 2015 14:00:00 GMT3bad918b-7b76-482d-b119-014f5042e828TSW 2015 Service Transformations conference in Las Vegas this October. Here's a sneak preview of a few early findings.]]>Fri, 02 Oct 2015 11:30:00 GMTd23fb08c-400e-4e1d-b456-9d60d5104466Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:30:00 GMTcf6f78af-af53-47b2-ab9a-518856f4aba3customer success research, I’d like to introduce myself by sharing some thoughts on where customer success fits into this dramatic shift, and what we can look forward to in the future. ]]>Tue, 29 Sep 2015 11:30:00 GMTb93e3d98-c564-4eff-8e21-31366ab37412TSIA communitywho have recently expanded their membership to include additional service disciplines TSIA has to offer. Here’s a little bit about each company, in their own words.]]>Mon, 28 Sep 2015 11:30:00 GMTa30ff79f-7070-4ba0-875d-d289d24addd5capabilities you’ll need to develop before providing customer outcomes, as well as ways to determine how your customers measure success. To continue with the theme of answering the question “What’s most important to your customers?” the final installment in this blog series will cover how your organization can offer, and monetize, adoption services to ensure your customers are not only reaching their desired outcomes, but are doing so in the most effective way possible using your technology and your services.]]>Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:30:00 GMT006d3465-0700-4d23-a815-e848255c99abB4B transformation? In this final installment of our 10-part blog series about how IoT is impacting Hardware and Industrial Equipment companies, we’ll be talking about how you can leverage your field service workforce in new and exciting ways.]]>Wed, 23 Sep 2015 00:17:32 GMT74696b9e-25f6-4043-94c0-58fe8fac8072“The Who, What, Why, and How of Driving Adoption and Outcomes,” TSIA’s executive director, Thomas Lah, explains how successful adoption of technology is your key to unlocking the door to expansion and renewal. Using examples of the three kinds of customers you’re likely to encounter along the way, as well as TSIA’s LAER model, he explains the process behind reaching that first critical milestone on the adoption journey.]]>Fri, 11 Sep 2015 11:30:00 GMT33a05a4b-749c-49ab-b78c-d797c469a69bB4B: How Technology and Big Data Are Reinventing the Customer-Supplier Relationship, you’ll be taken through a narrative of how shifts in the industry are leading to a simple yet crucial conclusion: while the product B2B model was designed to sell things to customers, the new B4B model is about delivering outcomes for customers.]]>Fri, 04 Sep 2015 21:10:12 GMT5df4d3dc-b57c-4f49-8d81-8990f69208d1previous post, we stressed the importance of companies designing new service offers that are centered on driving business outcomes in order to avoid creating another complexity avalanche in the age of IoT. In this latest installment of our IoT blog series, we’ll be tackling the topics of organizational structure and smart service capabilities as industries move along the remote services continuum.]]>Tue, 01 Sep 2015 12:04:00 GMT0e639103-94f7-4f85-9ad9-024e9365b2c7TSIA Pulse webinars are a great way to hear directly from our research team about how emerging industry trends are affecting their respective service discipline, and what you can do to stay current. The majority of this quarter’s Pulse sessions touch on the topic of customer adoption and what you can do to make sure your customers are not only purchasing your solutions, but are using them effectively to achieve their desired outcomes. Here’s a list of this quarter’s TSIA Pulse webinars, in case you missed it!]]>Fri, 28 Aug 2015 11:30:00 GMT1f14632d-99a2-4169-a710-db7b7c04ec5cCRM Evolution Conference in New York, which is always a good show to hear the latest trends in marketing, sales and service automation. I gave presentations on social support with B2B companies, and the impact of mobility on field service, as well as participating in a panel discussion on launching and managing successful communities. Here’s a recap of some of the most interesting conversations I had or session topics I sat in on.]]>Thu, 27 Aug 2015 11:30:00 GMT5021159a-0924-4b98-890a-53312328cf32When it comes to choosing the best method for growing your maintenance and IT support revenue, there are several viable options available to you. In this infographic, we’ve used the data from the 2015 TSIA Service Revenue Generation Benchmark Study to offer up three levers you can pull to increase your revenue.
]]>Thu, 20 Aug 2015 16:13:22 GMT66e54246-c8c6-472e-a726-b4e27c392358previous blog post, we shared an extraordinary earnings report from GE that highlighted the revenue-generating capability of IoT by combining smart, connected products with smart services. When GE Aviation collects 5,000 data points per second from “tip to tail” sensors, the knowledge gained from analyzing the data can drive condition-based maintenance, fuel savings, and risk reduction, all of which result in greater bottom-line profitability for their customer and incremental revenue for GE.]]>Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:30:00 GMT1d2bf9d8-3b53-414c-b741-475a629350a2When I first began publishing research on customer communities as a self-service channel in 2004, few companies had a community, and most were afraid of the “free-for-all” nature of discussion forums, fearful of what customers might say. Today, communities are a critical channel in supporting customers (and partners), allowing expert customers to answer other users’ questions and weigh in on any issue based on their own unique experiences.

According to a multi-member study I conducted in 2014, support communities are handling on average 19.1% of total support volume, i.e., the total number of customer questions asked across all assisted and unassisted channels. What’s more, based on post-session surveys, members say that 42% of questions answered in a forum deflect an assisted support phone call or email.

]]>Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:00:00 GMTe5624774-0dd9-49ca-bed8-8edd5e523096Tue, 11 Aug 2015 11:30:00 GMT54c0a262-8dd3-4256-aae6-2be5b7f7605aTSIA’s Customer Success and Support discipline, and while the topics of those conversations are unique to each member, I have noticed some common struggles. This year alone, I have seen more members set up customer success organizations than ever before, which confirms what we already know: customer success is not just a growing trend, but is here to stay. When I work with our members on defining their charter, discussing key KPIs, compensation for Customer Success Managers (CSMs), and organizational structure, I test on a number of practices, but one practice in which I see the most weakness is in customer success funding. ]]>Fri, 07 Aug 2015 00:26:04 GMTa960d8d8-ba49-45c6-99b2-63a1bc9e1f55Looking to grow your top-line revenue? While it’s always important to land new customers, many technology companies are overlooking the untapped source of potential revenue from within their existing customer base. Join us October 19-21 at the ARIA Resort & Casino for TSW 2015 Service Transformations, where you can learn how to get started on the right path to Growing Customers Successfully through driving adoption and delivering customer outcomes.
]]>Fri, 31 Jul 2015 02:43:25 GMT2d293a39-6d3e-43da-91f7-e52f14b43e21Tue, 28 Jul 2015 11:30:00 GMT762b304f-1617-4859-821f-f6652ca16d65IoT blog series to bring you an extraordinary earnings report from an industrial equipment company that highlights the significant role of smart, connected products and IoTin driving services growth.

Most, if not all, companies place growing total revenue at the top of their strategic priorities. However, the industry hasn’t quite figured out how to pull it off. In fact, the TSIA Service 50, an index that tracks the 50 largest providers of technology services, has shown declines in tech revenue of $36B, or 15%, over the last 3 years.

]]>Fri, 24 Jul 2015 11:30:00 GMTe90210fc-085d-4c02-ac29-cba5712c77aaa new MS business in the near future, here’s an example of an ideal MS organization structure and the functions of each of the key roles. ]]>Thu, 23 Jul 2015 22:27:04 GMTd906f8c1-e7f8-4f39-b62e-bde343bcc39cTue, 14 Jul 2015 11:30:00 GMTb00ac337-f74e-4797-9aa4-1b9e6143affbsmart, connected products, driving service efficiency, and optimizing customer processes that drive improvements for both themselves and their customers. However, before you can begin focusing on customer outcomes and understanding the systems your solution is in by leveraging analytics, you need to create the right B4B offer types that follow the Remote Services Continuum and connect with your sales initiatives to create profitable growth.]]>Thu, 09 Jul 2015 11:30:00 GMT98488cf8-4d22-4853-8092-efbf6367530bfirst part of this three part series, I discussed the top factors driving the shift to outcome-based offers, as well as the key capabilities required to be successful. Let’s dig a little deeper into how to get started, and in particular, how to surface the unmet needs of your customers.]]>Tue, 07 Jul 2015 11:30:00 GMTbe249632-be3c-4a01-86fb-4b5ef52993adeducation servicesorganizations is very delivery intensive, where instructors make up the majority of the organization’s headcount. To keep instructors instructing rather than focusing on non-productive, non-billable tasks, it’s up to ES organizations to ensure that instructors are spending their time efficiently.]]>Thu, 02 Jul 2015 11:30:00 GMT8c727764-4557-4bf9-8afb-796fdffd2628(Tweet this!) In his blog post, “Creating a Powerful Entrepreneurial On-Site Sales Force,” Vele Galovski, TSIA’s VP of Research, Field Services, discusses the benefits of transforming your company’s internal culture into one that encourages the concept of sales being everyone’s responsibility.]]>Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:15:00 GMTafbcc251-06e7-45e8-8c8d-389a4c6bed0fIn A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens wrote about life in London and Paris during the French Revolution. The story included this iconic opening line:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, ..." A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

The same could be said today for industrial equipment companies trying to survive the “Internet of Things” revolution. While it is a time of opportunity for the industry, many companies will not make the transition to the new business models.

]]>Tue, 23 Jun 2015 11:30:00 GMTedac5326-c59d-42c1-aeeb-09b563215b54outcome-based models by focusing on customer adoption.]]>Thu, 18 Jun 2015 21:04:56 GMTa2a43475-1966-4826-8e63-77f4bb9c5314blog series, we introduced the remote services continuum with a look at service efficiency and process optimization, and ended with a warning that this will not be enough to meet future business challenges. As customers continue to insist that suppliers move towards a Level 3 and Level 4 business model, finding new ways to save customers money and improve their business outcomes will determine the long-term success of technology companies. This is where the true opportunities of the Internet of Things and smart services reside. ]]>Thu, 11 Jun 2015 11:30:00 GMT685815cf-7402-4894-95be-b16f04bad206Tue, 09 Jun 2015 11:30:00 GMT783d510b-9876-44b8-b803-46a1d44ff48fThu, 04 Jun 2015 11:30:00 GMT58724dea-6ad2-4fe9-9a38-0796333bd914Tue, 02 Jun 2015 11:30:00 GMT8d1e457f-2a2b-467c-af96-1e26eec69ca2now available to view online, where you can tap into valuable insights shared by some of the most brilliant minds the technology services industry has to offer.]]>Fri, 29 May 2015 11:30:00 GMTd88d31d4-8d05-4545-abfa-ebe2d92b7730“Driving Service Efficiency in the Age of IoT”, we highlighted the most common application for smart, connected products: service efficiency. However, this narrow focus limited the return on investment for many suppliers, leaving many to wonder what the IoT (Internet of Things) buzz was all about. The next step on the Remote Services continuum, process optimization, places more emphasis on the customer, which leads to better results for everyone. ]]>Thu, 28 May 2015 11:30:00 GMTedefda6c-dc3a-44b6-9fcc-37c538f6c84cVP Research, Technology and Social, John Ragsdale, was able to get a detailed overview of the latest industry buzz through one-on-one conversations with TSIA members and partners, as well as TSW attendees. Here is a snapshot of some of the key takeaways from TSW 2015 Best Practices that John observed, in his own words. ]]>Tue, 26 May 2015 11:30:00 GMT05720a59-2b66-4f1e-99e6-e3f4e390d9d5Expand Selling. Through this emerging new concept, TSIA is taking the lead in helping companies find the fastest path to top line revenue growth by growing customers.]]>Fri, 22 May 2015 11:30:00 GMT34f091b2-d013-4cde-ab47-d4bdd5c9d09cSmart Products Need Smart Services: How IoT Affects Industrial Equipment, we introduced the TSIA Remote Services Continuum, which provides a framework for companies that have implemented or are considering incorporating smart, connected products as part of their product portfolio. Today’s post will go into more detail on the first and, by far, most common step along the continuum: Service Efficiency.]]>Thu, 14 May 2015 11:30:00 GMT8fa0e083-f0e3-466d-9786-46b83d13c27cOn October 2013, CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt, kicked off GE’s Minds+Machines conference with this statement:

"You went to bed last night as an industrial company. You will wake up in the morning as a software and analytics company."

So what would make the CEO of an industrial equipment giant say this? In addition to their wide range of product offerings, GE is quickly becoming a software and analytics company that is stretching the definition of what a product is and how they can improve their customer’s outcomes with that newly defined product. In the new age of IoT (Internet of Things), your industrial equipment organization can benefit by taking GE’s lead in developing smart services that support your products.

]]>Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:36:00 GMT05dcbd63-d0f8-43c0-83ae-cc6c520c10edTue, 28 Apr 2015 11:30:00 GMT5227a5d6-4422-4baa-8cd0-9292c3171a43IntelliResponse about how Gartner is predicting that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. In fact, in one of their recent surveys, 56% of the respondents indicated that they have a self-service initiative underway. However, the challenge remains with the people using it and the technology.]]>Thu, 23 Apr 2015 11:30:00 GMT06f9e0fd-61ef-4688-b8bb-ea5ea2363baaperformance efficiencies can be realized. ]]>Tue, 21 Apr 2015 11:30:00 GMT8e8b460d-dd9c-4415-8ae0-e04a025b171dpart 1 of this two-part blog series, I talked about some of the top 6 emerging trends in field services occurring as the result of major changes in the industry. Here are the last three trends on this list that you can expect to see as we continue through 2015. ]]>Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:30:00 GMT9fbfbf6f-3a8a-4dad-987c-4028e59b2495Thu, 09 Apr 2015 11:30:00 GMT9a678367-6b0d-48ba-b2e1-072d1c3826cfThu, 02 Apr 2015 11:30:00 GMT83c0f162-b852-4f0b-8082-128ff3de15b9fee-based business. Fortunately for education services, there is a concept that can help counter this fear called “land and expand.”]]>Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:46:59 GMT4c428ece-3c47-4101-b829-e94bf722799femerging trends can affect your business. Based on the results of TSIA’s most recent research and member survey responses, here are 3 of the top 6 trends affecting field services to keep any eye on in 2015.]]>Thu, 26 Mar 2015 11:30:00 GMT5e562967-7b1a-42d7-8db8-dd562c135ce3customer success. Here’s a sampling of three of the key steps to help you get started down the right path. ]]>Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:51:00 GMTe955b62a-468c-47bb-a7cc-897b0c6b5b74Thu, 19 Mar 2015 15:30:00 GMT9c1baf95-235e-4b40-9b0b-737dc27790e5Tue, 17 Mar 2015 14:22:00 GMT0a42e91b-2572-411d-a8ca-a1cdc5eb2131building customer success capabilities within your organization can help. ]]>Tue, 10 Mar 2015 11:30:00 GMT08aebb98-d17a-4779-a4c4-ca2efc56582bThu, 05 Mar 2015 12:30:00 GMTc6b26a28-1bcb-43a9-97e0-482def69f937Thu, 26 Feb 2015 12:30:00 GMT009346fb-0b0f-4e40-a841-ef77b95aee93offer social support through online discussion communities, but now it’s time to explore the second part of this customer satisfaction puzzle: social media support. Support interactions through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, etc., can play an important role in providing the level of support your customers have come to expect from you and your business. ]]>Fri, 20 Feb 2015 12:30:00 GMT7643c6f6-6eaf-49b5-b525-29ff6408a0d3professional services members, there have been four frequently asked questions that continue to come up. I’d like to take this opportunity to answer some of the top questions I receive about project performance, pricing, sales models, and the technology and tools you should be using in your professional services organization. ]]>Thu, 12 Feb 2015 12:30:00 GMTfd32b173-ece5-41f5-8075-14b6a94c1462Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:30:00 GMT31c2be89-bafc-43b8-88b8-602130d7fb39technology services industry has experienced a dramatic shift in recent years when it comes to customer demands. In an effort to overcome the emerging challenges as a result of this change, more businesses are developing new and improved service capabilities that promote customer outcomes. While investing time and money into the right capabilities will allow your business to continue to grow, how do you determine which capabilities will be the most beneficial to your organization?]]>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 12:30:00 GMT6a79d1e3-479d-4beb-bd11-ce203e3d9e90managed services can assist you in your daily processes to keep your organization running like a well-oiled machine.]]>Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:45:51 GMTbebd77c1-f7d8-4dd8-ac0b-b7765ac4b650B4B world, meeting business outcomes for the customer is increasingly more important. If suppliers can present valid solutions to the pressing issues facing customers at the right time, then win rates will improve, suppliers’ business will grow, and customers will gain success. Can these offers, or at least the presentation of the offers, be automated? ]]>Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:30:00 GMTa6a8b247-e3c2-41f6-9dbe-ea0993f297e1education service providers are starting to develop learning-as-a-service (LaaS) offers that include cloud-based tools, providing customers with even more accessibility to education resources that benefit learners and educators alike. Here are some things to keep in mind to help you get started in creating your own LaaS offering.]]>Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:30:00 GMTf54de106-6e64-44ca-afef-47f795ebb058watch our on-demand webinar where we go over the latest findings, but first, let's briefly recap what we've learned so far. ]]>Thu, 15 Jan 2015 12:30:00 GMT1a9832f9-e559-4753-995e-e9d4071765bbcustomer success,” “customer experience,” “customer loyalty,” used repeatedly, but just because these phrases are common within our industry, it doesn’t mean that their meanings are obvious. We’re going to focus on clarifying the difference between two phrases that are often confused with one another: customer service and customer success.]]>Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:30:00 GMT5d4cb6dd-e5be-4855-aa10-c2a295ae7756talked a lot about the emergence of B4B and the growing need for product-focused companies to become customer outcome-focused, but there is still a lot of confusion about how to accomplish this transformation. In this three part blog series, I will be outlining the key capabilities required in order to make the transition, how to identify customer outcomes, and how your company can take the plunge toward offering outcomes as part of your pricing model. ]]>Fri, 09 Jan 2015 12:30:00 GMTb0a9e011-c62c-455c-a142-1f399ace59c9TSIA research team wanted to provide a brief recap of the top trends, lessons learned, and key takeaways the past year had to offer. Let's take a look at what we've learned this year, as well as what's on the horizon for the technology services industry in 2015.]]>Tue, 23 Dec 2014 14:03:00 GMT46ddaf76-adfe-4451-86f8-77abce85a7ededucation services (ES) organizations consider in building and maintaining a successful subscription business?]]>Mon, 22 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMTa65dd1f9-3322-40ac-aa65-743873af6b0fsocial media channels. IT departments are adapting to cloud-based and mobile-based platforms to make all these touch points sync together. ]]>Sat, 20 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMTab71f2c1-c75b-439c-9c69-e92de84c0627I've heard quite a few support leaders say that they know they're doing a good job because they're resolving issues quickly and their customer satisfaction surveys are good. Because, you know, that's what support does. Close cases. Quickly. In a way that satisfies customers. Mission accomplished; let's grab a beer!

Not so fast.

This belief begs the question of why the support organization exists. Because most of the activity, headcount, and budget are tied up in closing cases, it's easy to assume that the business of support is closing cases, full stop. But that's far too limited a view of our business.

]]>Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMTf0410ede-652e-493a-9913-8f60554567edB4B will be impacting spares in the future. Here I will share with you how spare parts and logistics is important, expensive, complicated, and fast becoming a very specialized discipline in services.]]>Fri, 19 Dec 2014 12:30:00 GMTaf0cbf48-9f62-478e-b22e-5ed19206796eIn his book, Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson identified principles that served as catalysts for breakthroughs throughout history:

Seizing existing components or ideas and repurposing them for a completely different use.

Adapting many layers of existing knowledge, components, delivery mechanisms that in themselves may not be unique; but which can be recombined or leveraged into something new that is unique or novel.

So clearly, open-minded companies in search of breakthrough results can benefit from understanding great practices developed by other organizations of any size, in any industry. So why don't they?

]]>Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMT3a387e05-aa56-4079-bbf9-fb8b46cd006fmust-watch video, and a must-have book for your business arsenal. Get ready for the new B4B era as we enter into a new and exciting time for tech services. ]]>Wed, 17 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMT78cd1b51-d7b5-400a-b710-1d634f7cd8fdTSIA members and partners. Now that we're wrapping up 2014, I wanted to recap with some of the insights I learned mid-year as food for thought going forward into 2015. Here is my account as I originally wrote it this spring.]]>Tue, 16 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMTff9b59fd-480e-4e46-8e48-2842cdd6d40eTue, 16 Dec 2014 12:30:00 GMT39ad6263-72d0-42f0-9b15-7488d8b834e8Discussions continue in organizations across the globe as they look to optimize their professional services sales models, and for good reason. An optimized professional services sales model helps organizations set realistic goals and put strategies into place that will help them achieve those goals, all while gaining a competitive advantage.
]]>Mon, 15 Dec 2014 17:21:00 GMT7d3c4f4a-fd7d-41f5-9b97-e37a4cf1951cSat, 13 Dec 2014 15:06:00 GMT622104b7-ba85-4e4b-80fb-faa89d8ed312Fri, 12 Dec 2014 15:30:00 GMT7e8dd6a5-0a59-47e5-9639-0d3146defc94Fri, 12 Dec 2014 12:30:00 GMT7c208e52-bcf6-4d33-a3b0-070120f39f8bB4B co-author and TSIA executive director Thomas Lah delivered a memorable and eye-opening TSW keynote at last month’s TSW Service Transformations conference, discussing what the B4B model means for technology services organizations. Here are some highlights from that important discussion. If you haven’t gotten your copy of the book B4B, it’s a must-have, and it’s available at Amazon. It’s a promising time to be in tech services, as we head toward the new era of B4B.]]>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:00:00 GMT85736857-edce-4cf2-9288-e26fd8087fe6Tue, 09 Dec 2014 12:30:00 GMT9401e75c-da59-489c-809d-bf387c48acd6TSW 2014 Service Transformations keynote session videos are now available to view online. Start with our headlining keynote session, “Growing Corporate Top Lines in the B4B Era”, presented by TSIA’s president and CEO, J.B. Wood, where he discusses emerging trends that are affecting the future of the technology industry and how organizations can adapt.]]>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 12:30:00 GMT12a15c47-7628-4375-b5a5-400b31197968professional services (PS), it is the desire to improve project performance. With few exceptions, that is the one motivation all PS executives share. The reason for this is simple: the vast majority of PS delivery occurs in the form of projects, rather than as a continuous service. It stands to reason that PS managers are constantly seeking to understand and enhance project performance. ]]>Thu, 20 Nov 2014 21:36:00 GMTdef4c974-a78c-4893-93d2-a28d1d2c3db1Empirical evidence shows that technology services businesses tend to lose up to five percentage points of their profit margin due to untapped revenue potential within their own customer base. A major part of this missed revenue opportunity is based on already performed services that have been overlooked or poorly invoiced.

However, as hidden revenues are a common problem with similar causes among technology services firms, they can be addressed in a three-step approach to locate, recover, and secure them effectively and efficiently. In this guide, we'll show you how to positively impact your company's profit margin simply by identifying and recovering charges due for services rendered.

]]>Tue, 18 Nov 2014 12:30:00 GMT27a9d92a-a88f-4926-beb5-f0387ae59bfbservices revenues are on the rise. It’s becoming clear that embracing an XaaS model as part of your managed services business can help increase your company’s revenue potential.]]>Fri, 14 Nov 2014 00:08:38 GMT7bb35ffc-91d0-47b4-a23c-9269d1f218cdTechnology Services World conference, I spent a day in one-on-one meetings with members, discussing their technology challenges and planned projects. One topic kept popping up again and again: creating a customer portal on the company website. With so many companies confused about where to begin, here are some best practices and lessons learned to consider. ]]>Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:30:00 GMTa864b481-6a85-4b9d-8d33-a172b3da5dec 2nd Annual Knowledge Management Survey, I was able to identify some common issues that could determine the success or failure of a knowledge management system, how to fix them, and how to prevent them from happening in the ]]>Fri, 07 Nov 2014 12:30:00 GMT5a31c3be-1a34-4a84-94ae-73fa8f6e9e1dTSIA STAR Awards that were announced during the Awards Celebration Gala at the conference. ]]>Tue, 04 Nov 2014 12:30:00 GMT6b0782a6-a1d8-4869-a95c-bc6e93d6b0b6to put valuable resources into something you expect will give a personal or financial gain; to spend or devote for future advantage or benefit. So let’s look at how and why an investment in your customer and technical service team can pay off.]]>Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMTb192f746-9a8e-4003-9a1e-22c4c204a9fbactual customer experiences. The more touch points customers receive, the more detailed the map. The purpose of customer journey mapping is to understand service delivery from start to finish so that companies can improve their processes for exceptional customer service. ]]>Tue, 28 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMT8bade96b-5846-4de5-ac2e-d488897e9204Originally published on Ragsdale's Eye On Service - Today at Technology Services World I am releasing the results of my August knowledge management survey both online, and in my Power Hour session at 4:15. The data shows that companies continue to find enormous potential in knowledge management, but are often thwarted by corporate culture, and tend to blame technology for process problems. Also, there is growing interest in emerging technologies that are changing the approach and priority of knowledge capture and sharing.]]>Mon, 20 Oct 2014 20:51:00 GMT92d93b64-dbc0-4b99-89d6-afea67e5f1d3managed services sales, frequently leads to a complex and resource-consuming development process, all too often with disappointing results. The best approach is a clearly structured, “fast-track” method that encourages teamwork, which has been proven to result in new ideas and strategies, and in some cases, increased sales. Today I will be discussing how to create a successful go-to-market strategy using Wincor Nixdorf as a case study example as a company who benefitted from our method.]]>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMT546f5f77-79c1-4a05-8b8a-fa3aa87ed367McKinsey, 20% of your workweek is spent looking for internal information or trying to get a hold of someone who has it. An employee-facing or customer-facing knowledgebase seems like the most logical solution to this problem, however the way we currently implement them clearly isn’t working. ]]>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMTcd7a589e-c9f9-4055-a62c-035ad282490eTue, 14 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMT89a9fe69-96c3-43dc-8ac5-4c3d94843f5bsupport organizations be responsible for facilitating their success. Companies that recognize these changes and embrace them in their day-to-day operations are going to be the ones that survive and thrive in this new environment, but how can this be achieved?]]>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 16:33:03 GMT53274550-80a0-47d2-8f09-85079f188484In TSIA’s 2014 Customer Success Baseline Survey, we set out to discover what key practices companies are using to drive customer success delivery and performance. Using industry responses, we were able to identify three distinct profiles of customer success organizations (CSOs) as well as establishing a baseline set of performance results and metrics.
]]>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMTf6374f4c-b17a-481e-926a-fcb3b7398d10Congratulations! Through blood, sweat, and maybe even a few tears, you’ve acquired a new customer. Chances are, you’ve invested a good amount of time and money to do so. What you may not realize is that on average, it takes just over three years to recoup the initial cost to acquire and get to profitability with that customer.
]]>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMTd02df976-c550-4867-a136-23bbf86219c4Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:30:00 GMTf14a03e8-155c-4e7d-add8-77bb61fc9513customer-supplier relationship is changing fast in B2B. Customers today are better informed than they were a decade, or even just a few years ago. Owing to increasingly sophisticated procurement teams and purchasing consultants armed with troves of data, companies can readily define solutions for themselves, without the help of suppliers.]]>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:30:00 GMT070e59bd-3442-4065-897f-d05a0ca10afd“Customer Success: Organization or Set of Offers?” we explored who within your organization should be facilitating customer outcomes. Here’s a brief recap of some of the points we talked about.]]>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:07:00 GMTb9fa46ff-57b5-4187-a385-7e80bb577aabenhance the customer experience without a social media strategy, think again. There is no getting around the fact that implementing a social media strategy consumes energy and resources, but managing your online presence via social media channels requires more than simply signing up for a Facebook or Twitter account.]]>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 11:30:00 GMT3ff7f2e2-88ec-4a78-8549-9a776d96f2f5Tue, 16 Sep 2014 11:30:00 GMT12b85fdc-8223-459c-ba6f-3835b078070eWhen even just one point of improvement in your renewal rate can translate to millions of dollars, your customer retention rate can make a huge impact on your bottom line. But just how optimized is your current renewal process?
]]>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:30:00 GMT5cd9d474-1e95-4d6c-a16f-1ea3738f12d9Tue, 09 Sep 2014 11:30:00 GMTf8650d80-0235-4b31-b13c-2aa5b3443cc5customer success. Executive director of TSIA, Thomas Lah, provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what goes on during the 2014 TSIA Research Summit. ]]>Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:30:00 GMTabbd7ed6-b736-4ae0-8c3a-82e5598f5cabTue, 02 Sep 2014 12:00:00 GMT53738e93-ffb7-4bde-a097-5f1a9c8d009aFri, 29 Aug 2014 11:30:00 GMT849aa7dd-832a-4de9-a1b7-dd34ae6c839bThe growing popularity of field service mobility, such as the use of smartphones and tablets while responding to a service call, have had major implications for field services organizations. While increased mobility is one obvious advantage, the rapid development of video conferencing, mobile knowledge management applications, and wearables is rapidly creating an even greater positive impact. For example, the ability to link a customer to a live video chat agent for help has created a whole new user experience that is going to convince customers, and field services personnel, that this is an option they need.
]]>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:30:00 GMTbe011bab-df43-400a-a68a-9465542af649service revenue and profit trends for the technology industry in our widely followed Service 50 index. We aggregate the financial performance of 50 of the largest global providers of technology services to identify service revenue and profitability trends, while also providing critical observations based on the current quarterly update.]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:30:00 GMT41ad83b3-f677-4daa-874b-8ce7ce4052eaThe title may sound tongue-in-cheek, but there is a set of strong, fact-based data points that support the assertion that those that don’t offer managed services are risking the long-term health of their P&L.

In my second MS Pulse webinar of 2014, I revealed the market influence on managed services, focusing on several core MS Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that all Managed Services Providers (MSPs) need to track, as well as some of the details on how companies are organizing their MS businesses. Here is a snapshot of some of the data revealed.

]]>Fri, 15 Aug 2014 15:33:17 GMT6e8c0781-9fb3-4218-bbdd-bb6de095265atogether; building on the knowledge of those who came before. Personally, I find standing on the shoulders of giants exciting and rewarding. I actively look for "shoulder standers." Their commitment to sharing and improving knowledge will make your team even more successful.]]>Fri, 08 Aug 2014 00:43:56 GMT9d362c2e-2d61-45bb-b2f8-51394cf6751dso much that we end up negatively affectingthe customer experience. Before we can scale support and success services for better revenue generation, we first need to better optimize the organizational capabilities of the people, technology, and processes that make it all happen.]]>Tue, 05 Aug 2014 11:30:00 GMT55e5b10a-c575-4bcb-8f42-71d2b5643dadToday’s professional services industry faces the unique challenge of needing to transition from a solely product-driven business model to one that also provides services and customer outcomes. Recent industry surveys have shown that software is replacing hardware, cloud is replacing on-premise, and services are becoming more valuable than products, and any organization that fails to stay current with these emerging trends can find themselves struggling to stay afloat.
]]>Thu, 31 Jul 2014 11:30:00 GMTde431b82-4408-49a1-bede-25bea499f569According to TSIA PS benchmark reports, companies that incorporate PSA see higher billable utilization, better rate utilization, fewer days to staff projects, increased project margins, and lower field costs when compared to their industry peers.]]>Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:30:00 GMTd276b06b-2f8a-4172-89af-21fb7b014c93support services is demanding, complex, and constantly changing. In technology support services, you are tasked with knowing what trends make smart investment sense, and what industry changes are short-term fads that you should not waste your resources on.]]>Mon, 07 Jul 2014 17:34:00 GMT0186d3b1-06bc-4869-b1e3-6a0a35b15b19Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:15:00 GMT41418ae1-3712-4d17-8444-3e17a975e9e1
Sounds like a great concept, but when you have a full-time professional sales force that is admired throughout the world, getting the company to believe that everyone can and should sell is no simple task. However, what I have seen is an untapped resource of field personnel that are so much more than cogs in the machine.]]>Tue, 24 Jun 2014 00:45:50 GMT7180cf48-f0ad-402d-bfbc-1f62b08425bdPart 1 of this blog series, we discussed two of the four key imperatives that software customer experience executives can use to help them develop and operate a new MCR model for the next stage of cloud services growth:Monetizing Additional Offerings and Embracing New Delivery Channels. Read on as we outline two additional imperatives that will help you get to the next level: Proactively Managing Customer Success and Rethinking Professional Services. If you haven't yet read Part 1, please review here.]]>Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:46:00 GMT33a726ca-0384-4dc5-8267-11280d1ba064Customer Support, and Retention (MCR) functions need to move to the forefront and become the most essential areas to drive profitability within the subscription model.]]>Tue, 10 Jun 2014 17:23:00 GMTd8324be5-e615-417a-9083-89a88073a470Sat, 07 Jun 2014 00:49:54 GMTffe98acb-cf13-4a92-a01f-d78e3f74fbc7field service team as part of your technical service operations, you understand how difficult, time-consuming, and costly it can be to finesse the logistics so that your field service operations are profitable. You may be wondering,"Is hiring a third-party provider to manage my field service operations a cost-effective solution? Will third-party providers meet my standards for customer service?"Outsourcing field service operations can be a wise move, but as with any large business shift, you need to carefully examine your options.]]>Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:04:00 GMTc2305f7a-2ea2-42c4-91cf-14f94f2e9a94Wed, 21 May 2014 18:34:00 GMTf7a29d07-26f5-4e29-bfe6-50ffcd06e63bTSIA research report of the same title. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, or you need a quick refresh, follow this link to read all previous posts in this series.]]>Fri, 16 May 2014 18:06:00 GMTa680c9ca-5933-4fb0-abab-97da8cfe2354actually helpful.]]>Thu, 15 May 2014 18:08:00 GMTc07f4ea9-19ab-481c-aebc-ea20773ea976Tue, 06 May 2014 19:18:26 GMT4dae91ef-1633-41a7-820c-3a013e5325ebTue, 06 May 2014 18:50:03 GMTd053f092-07b9-4776-9458-af9befabf890Mon, 05 May 2014 21:18:00 GMT95867ecd-40a5-4907-a4a6-865de2e640bathe potential to drive significant revenue from field services has become a new focus for technology companies. More and more these days we hear technology companies saying things like, “servicing our installed base is becoming the biggest revenue growth opportunity.”]]>Fri, 02 May 2014 18:38:58 GMT93c0fd15-a74d-4985-9941-f4134204ca94Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:28:00 GMT01d60f76-5942-480b-a851-253ca4ab9c73customer experience mapping (CEM) gives us all the power to do it! All it takes it stepping away from your desks for a while—and some empathetic imagination.]]>Thu, 24 Apr 2014 22:06:00 GMT31d2988f-4dc7-4545-98cd-2105b55706edTSIA research report of the same title. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, or you need a quick refresh, follow this link to the view all posts in this series.]]>Thu, 17 Apr 2014 18:21:00 GMTf1b8cc2d-e875-4f34-8168-66fda22b2914Wed, 16 Apr 2014 19:03:56 GMT01e3bbb5-4dc7-4f19-b33b-d8170bbe0b43Fri, 04 Apr 2014 18:54:58 GMT8003511a-e992-4cdb-a2de-68f9fea563f0TSIA research report of the same title. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, or you need a quick refresh, follow this link to the entire series so far. ]]>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:21:00 GMT333d8a33-25ff-4ab5-807d-c1cd07a1d4e8A Well-Defined and Documented Managed Services Strategy.” Any business without a well-documented business plan is a “bad experience for all involved,” just waiting to happen. A critical part of strategy execution is knowing exactly what product you want to bring to your customers. Hence, the #2 practice of a successful MSP is “A Standard Services Catalogue.” ]]>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:21:00 GMTdedef254-59ca-497c-8766-d8920c11bc42Fri, 21 Mar 2014 19:10:00 GMTef2e703c-e513-4cfa-af76-edcdf2d18e6fInside Technology Servicesblog articles, articulating the top mistakes made when starting a managed services (MS) business. The blogs were based on a TSIA Service Insight (research report) published for members in TSIA’s Managed Services discipline. The blog articles identified each mistake, while the full research report delved into deeper detail about the consequences of making those mistakes, as well as steps that could be taken to avoid them.Fast-forward several more months, and here we are in March 2014, 15 months into the launch of theTSIA Managed Services discipline. And what a productive 15 months it has been! The MS member benchmark reviews are well underway, and the data we have collected from the performance and practices of our MS members has been nothing short of amazing.]]>Wed, 19 Mar 2014 18:06:22 GMT3035bcf8-b79e-4eaa-a4d5-f465b62d69f3It costs an estimated five to ten times more to gain new customers than it does to retain existing customers, according to research. If you’re like many companies, you attempt to retain customers through various forms of customer satisfaction measurement and customer loyalty programs, but to what effect? If you have been seeing decent or high customer satisfaction marks from your customers, yet you feel that your loyalty programs aren’t retaining these same customers, it may be time to revisit your strategy.]]>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:53:00 GMTaf8cacdf-ba78-4931-b2e8-1698b7dc6d62TSIA members reported through the Field and Support Service Benchmark Surveys that they achieved great success through the utilization of remote monitoring and proactive support tools. The most notable improvements reported by TSIA members included significant cost reductions, reductions in the time to resolve an incident, and improvements in customer satisfaction. In a just-released member report, “Remote Monitoring and Proactive Support,” we took a closer look at how successful companies are optimizing their service delivery channels in all phases of the remote monitoring continuum.]]>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 23:16:40 GMTc090c593-9305-4c6f-af5d-884f1090b10dWed, 26 Feb 2014 19:01:05 GMT045c00bc-70bf-4ae2-96ef-3fa7dac0f95fSat, 22 Feb 2014 00:30:00 GMT2a87604c-c27d-493c-87aa-00ff080fb949Fri, 07 Feb 2014 18:56:03 GMT2e489a00-590f-4b29-a127-abe6709c9afdBased on discussions with hundreds of companies over a number of years regarding failing knowledge management programs, it appears that there are three common denominators linked to the majority of companies who claim not to be getting the expected value from their KM expenditures. Discover what these denominators are.